UNCHAINED 
RUSSIA 

CHARLES  EDWARD  RUSSELL 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 


UNCHAINED 
RUSSIA 


BY 

CHARLES  EDWARD  RUSSELL 

MEMBEH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SPECIAL  DIPLOMATIC  MISSION  TO  RUSSIA  IN  1917; 

AUTHOR  OF  "business:    THE  HEART  OF  THE  NATION," 

"THOMAS  CHATTERTON:    TnE  MARVELOUS  BOY," 

"THESE  SHIFTING  SCENES,"  "THE  STORY 

OF  WENDELL  PHILLIPS,"  ETC. 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1918 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1917, 1918,  by  International  Magazine  Company 

Copyright,  1917,  by  P.  F.  Collier  &  Son 
Copyright,  1917,  by  The  American  Home  Magazine  Company 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
CHAPTER 

I.    New  Russia  and  "the  Czar's  War     .     .  1 

II.    The  Real  Propulsion  and  the  Real  Hope  41 

III.  Two  Aspects  of  the  New  Faith     ...  94 

IV.  The  Old  Regime  and  Its  Fruitage      .      .  122 
V.    A   Broken   Down   Railroad   and   What 

Came  of  It *55 

VI.    The  Part  Played  by  Russian  Women       .  193 

VII.     The  Peasant 218 

VIII.     TheBolshevic 252 

IX.    The  Influence  of  Manners  and  Morals  290 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

CHAPTEE  I 
NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE  CZAR'S  WAR" 

To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time,  mankind 
is  likely  to  have  cause  to  lament  that  in  the  years 
1917  and  1918  the  people  of  the  United  States  did 
not  understand  the  people  of  Eussia  and  the  peo- 
ple of  Eussia  did  not  understand  the  people  of  the 
United  States. 

As  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  our  share 
of  the  understanding  was  partly  natural  and 
partly  manufactured :  partly  sheer  distance  from 
the  stage  and  partly  inattention  and  mental  lazi- 
ness. 

The  great  Eussian  Eevolution  of  March,  1917, 
was  economic  and  political.  We  persisted  in  ac- 
cepting it  as  only  political.  To  get  rid  of  the  Czar 
and  political  absolutism,  to  have  done  with  the 
absurd  medieval  trappings  of  monarchy,  to  set 
up  a  representative  republic  like  our  own:  these 
were  objects  we  could  well  understand  and  sym- 

1 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

pathize  with.  To  reform,  in  the  interest  of  all 
mankind,  the  existing  social  system;  to  abolish 
poverty;  to  secure  for  the  masses  every  possible 
chance  for  culture  and  comfort ;  to  end  the  modern 
world's  sottish  conditions  of  too  much  and  too 
little:  these  were  objects  that  seemed  to  us 
dreamy,  anarchistic  or  insane.  With  the  startling 
news  of  the  Revolution  we  grasped  rejoicingly  the 
first  series  of  objects ;  the  Czar  was  gone,  the  old 
hateful  tyranny  was  no  more,  blessed  be  the  day ! 
But  when  word  came  of  the  second  series  of 
objects  we  chilled  rapidly,  then  looked  askance, 
then  began  to  turn  upon  the  whole  manifestation 
a  face  of  frowning  reproof. 

This  was  nothing  to  be  wondered  at.  The 
United  States  had,  for  the  time  being,  stopped  on 
a  dead  center  in  its  democratic  evolution.  It  had 
ceased,  or  apparently  ceased,  to  go  ahead  demo- 
cratically, and  some  persons  of  limited  vision  even 
thought  it  was  floating  backward.  A  lapse  of  this 
kind  takes  place  in  the  story  of  every  republic. 
Having  won  political  freedom  we  were  for  the 
time  content  to  think  there  was  nothing  more  to 
be  done  and  to  roll  about  where  we  were,  inert 
socially  and  threatened  with  fatty  degeneration 
morally.     But   the   Russian  Revolutionists   had 

2 


NEW  EUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAE'S  WAR" 

shot  far  beyond  political  democracy;  they  aimed 
at  industrial  democracy  no  less.  All  the  years 
when  they  were  so  bravely  in  the  darkness  strug- 
gling for  freedom  and  light,  carrying  on  their 
secret  propaganda,  making  infinite  sacrifices  for 
the  sake  of  an  ideal,  walking  always  under  the 
shadow  of  a  horrible  fat-i,  those  unsung  heroes  of 
Russia  that  have  gone  by  the  thousands  to  graves, 
were  working  toward  this  two-fold  aim.  Political 
freedom  was  well,  it  was  very  well ;  but  it  was  well 
chiefly  because  it  offered  a  means  by  which  the 
masses  of  men  that  toil  could  secure  a  larger 
share  of  the  wealth  their  toil  created.  Freedom 
meant  a  world  freed  from  the  blight  of  kings  and 
freed  no  less  from  the  blight  of  an  industrial  sys- 
tem that  condemned  nine  men  in  every  ten  to  pov- 
erty ;  a  world  with  no  more  despots  and  no  more 
slums. 

To  oust  the  old  Russian  political  system,  blood- 
dripping  and  odious,  was  the  necessary  beginning. 
We,  still  shackled  more  or  less  to  another  century 
and  to  the  petrifactions  of  a  philosophy  good  in 
its  day  but  now  grown  rusty  as  a  stage  coach, 
thought  it  was  an  end,  and  when  we  began  to  see 
there  was  another  program  instinctively  we  shied 
away. 

3 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  new  program  was,  at 
first,  nothing  really  alarming.  The  dominant 
thought  in  Eussia  was  not  then  that  the  change 
could  be  effected  overnight.  Almost  in  an  hour, 
the  nation  passed  from  an  archaic  and  criminal 
tyranny  to  a  democracy  where,  for  a  time,  at  least, 
the  majority  ruled.  The  majority  had  never  ac- 
cepted the  doctrines  of  those  that  wished  to  pull 
up  everything  by  the  roots  or  build  from  clouds 
the  domes  of  glittering  Utopia.  Utopia  they  were 
determined  to  have  some  day,  if  you  like  so  to 
call  it,  but  not  being  insane  they  did  not  think  they 
could  get  it  with  an  incantation. 

Here,  then,  is  the  first  point,  that  if  the  people 
of  the  United  States  had  understood  this  reason- 
ing majority  and  had  manifested  sympathy  with 
it,  and  if  at  the  same  time  there  had  been  an  ad- 
equate effort  to  counter-attack  the  German  propa- 
ganda on  Eussian  soil,  we  should  have  had  a  dif- 
ferent story  to  tell  of  the  developments  of  the 
great  war.  For  if  Eussia  had  kept  steadfast  to 
the  cause  of  the  Allies  the  war  would  have  ended 
in  1917  and  the  safety  of  democracy  would  have 
been  truly  assured. 

As  to  the  manufactured  part  of  the  American 
misunderstanding  of  Eussia,  that  on  our  side  was 

4 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

only  in  a  small  way  malicious  or  prepensive.  We 
must  remember  that  at  our  best  we  started  off  on 
the  wrong  foot  about  Russia.  Those  of  us  that 
had  found  any  leisure  for  such  studies  had  un- 
pliant  notions  drawn  from  the  Russian  novels  we 
had  read  and  the  works  of  English  travelers  we 
had  labored  through,  and  we  felt  that  our  own 
gained  knowledge  we  should  profane  if  we  did  not 
hold  to  the  mental  images  won  at  such  a  cost.  We 
knew  that  Russia  was  a  country  of  dense  igno- 
rance, primitive  conditions,  bad  roads,  dull  peas- 
ants and  ever  flowing  vodka.  We  knew  well  the 
typical  Russian  of  the  upper  class,  polished,  hand- 
some, witty,  a  little  dangerous  if  a  man,  roman- 
tically alluring  if  a  woman,  supporting,  of  course, 
this  system  of  imperial  despotism;  but  after  all, 
what  could  you  expect?  The  Russian  people  were 
so  ignorant  and  so  degraded,  the  Nihilists  were  so 
violent — plainly  there  could  be  no  democracy  in 
such  a  country. 

We  thought,  too,  sometimes  of  the  peasant,  stu- 
pidly good-natured,  bestial,  loutish,  unkempt  and 
unwashed,  having  but  a  vestige  of  a  mind  and 
drunk  most  of  the  time.  In  mentally  conjured  pic- 
tures we  saw  him  standing  rammishly  about  as  he 
always  stood  in  the  pages  of  our  favorite  novels ; 

5 


UNCHAINED  BUSSIA 

we  had  mind  upon  his  long  tangled  hair,  his  long 
sprawling  beard,  his  trousers  in  his  great  boots, 
his  belt  and  strange  tunic  instead  of  the  coat  and 
collar  of  civilization ;  and  the  whole  of  him  spelled 
to  us  only  a  figure  of  sodden  imbecility.  And  he 
and  his  kind  made  up  75  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion! What  a  country!  "Who  could  have  hope  of 
it? 

After  1914,  when  a  decree  of  the  Czar  evicted 
the  vodka  demon  from  his  native  land,  this  ac- 
cepted picture  of  ours  was  somewhat  marred.  If 
there  was  no  vodka  the  peasant  class  could  not  be 
drunk  all  the  time.  Still  we  clung  resolutely  to 
what  was  left,  and  as  to  the  drunkenness  contrived 
to  think  that  if  there  was  no  vodka  there  must  be 
something  else.  Beer,  if  taken  in  sufficient  quan- 
tities, would,  it  was  believed,  produce  intoxication. 
Perhaps  the  Czar's  decree  did  not  include  beer, 
and  the  peasant  might  still  be  conscientiously 
faithful  to  a  picture  of  him  limned  by  so  many 
able  pens  that  no  reading  people  could  be  expected 
to  give  it  up. 

And  now  a  population  of  which  the  great  ma- 
jority were  of  this  order  had  been  suddenly  en- 
dowed with  democracy,  a  benefaction  of  which  nec- 
essarily it  could  know  nothing,  and  being  so  en- 

6 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

dowed  it  was  minded  to  change  a  social  structure 
sanctified  with  the  approval  of  all  the  old  estab- 
lished and  successful  nations,  including  both  de- 
mocracies and  near-democracies!  Under  these 
conditions  it  was  but  natural  that  we  should  feel 
first  alarm  and  then  aversion. 

But  so  far  as  the  great  mass  of  the  people  were 
concerned,  those  that  had  never  read  Russian 
novels,  that  had  never  unraveled  the  sour  and 
intorted  criticisms  of  travelers,  nor  suspected 
there  could  be  anything  admirable  about  a  des- 
potism steeped  in  blood  and  corruption,  for  them 
the  making  of  misunderstanding  proceeded  upon 
a  gigantic  scale  in  the  columns  of  the  daily  press. 
Unintentionally ;  no  doubt  of  that,  at  least  at  this 
end  of  the  line.  It  was  not  the  American  editor's 
fault  that  day  by  day  he  printed  in  his  news  col- 
umns matter  about  Russia  that  poisoned  the 
minds  and  perverted  the  judgments  of  his  read- 
ers. He  had  not  the  slightest  suspicion  of  the 
thimble-rigging  of  which  he  was  the  victim.  There 
seems  to  be  no  help  for  these  things  and  no  reason 
to  find  fault  with  the  sure  by-product  of  modern 
commerce.  The  business  of  the  newspaper  was  to 
furnish  its  readers  with  "good  stories.''  Every- 
thing relating  to  Russia  that  indicated  violence, 

7 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

conflict,  riot,  any  manifested  tendency  to  uproot 
and  destroy,  was  naturally  a  "good  story";  it 
had  the  requisite  of  action,  the   sauce  without 
which  any  news  article  is  to  our  taste  but  flat  and 
juiceless.     There  was  no  "good  story"  in  the 
tame  events  of  government's  daily  routine,  in  the 
worthy  things  the  new  democracy  achieved,  in  its 
astonishing  success  in  maintaining  order,  in  its 
efforts  to  establish  universal  education  and  uni- 
versal   suffrage,    to   extend   and    safeguard   the 
rights  of  the  people,  to  institute  a  system  of  jus- 
tice, actual  and  uncorrupted,  where  none  had  been 
before,  to  meet  such  problems  as  had  never  con- 
fronted any  other  newly  launched  nation  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  to  straighten  the  tangles  left 
by  the  Czar's  incomparable  band  of  thieves  and 
bunglers.    No  such  matter  would  lay  touch  upon 
the  ganglions  of  any  reader's  imagination;  why, 
therefore,  should  they  be  printed  f    But  the  ' '  good 
stories,"  though  doubtless  very  good,  convinced  a 
public  already  bent  to  such  a  judgment  that  Rus- 
sia was  in  a  state  of  utter  chaos,  liberty  had  be- 
come merely  license,  and  the  return  of  despotism 
in  some  shape  or  other  was  inevitable.    At  a  time 
when  Petrograd  was  one  of  the  most  orderly  cities 
in  the  world,  the  opera  bouffe  performances  of  a 

8 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

little  band  of  notoriety-seeking  Anarchists  were 
assumed  to  mean  universal  ruin  and  desolation; 
an  insignificant  change  in  an  always  insignificant 
cabinet  was  interpreted  as  the  forerunner  of  a 
Napoleon  and  a  new  form  of  empire ;  any  proces- 
sion of  workingmen  heralded  barricades  in  the 
streets  and  firing  from  the  house  tops. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  we  assisted  these  proc- 
esses with  an  open-mouthed  and  apparently  un- 
failing credulity.  The  weirdest  achievements  of 
romantic  fancy  looked  but  pale  compared  with 
some  of  the  stories  cabled  from  Stockholm  and 
Copenhagen,  Christiania  and  Amsterdam,  pur- 
porting to  give  news  of  Russia ;  but  none  of  them 
seemed  too  hectic  for  our  naive  faith.  We  read 
one  day  a  narrative  that  anyone  so  much  as  glanc- 
ing at  a  map  would  see  was  not  merely  incredible 
but  impossible,  and  the  next  day  read  another 
equally  strange  but  exactly  reversing  the  first,  and 
apparently  we  not  only  believed  both  but  were 
ready  the  next  day  for  a  third  flight  of  fancy  in- 
consistent with  either  of  the  others.  The  psy- 
chology of  the  public's  seeming  readiness  to  take 
for  true  any  morbid  invention  that  bears  a  for- 
eign date  line  is  beyond  explanation.  If  we  were 
to  learn  by  word  of  mouth  the  self-same  tale  we 

9 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

sometimes  read  in  the  foreign  despatches  we 
should  not  be  in  the  least  danger  of  believing  it ; 
once  cast  into  type  with  the  name  of  a  European 
city  tagged  to  it,  and  it  seems  to  have  the  author- 
ity of  holy  writ.  A  great  good  fortune  that  befell 
this  country  was  the  high  character  and  extraor- 
dinary ability  of  the  American  newspaper  corre- 
spondents in  Russia  at  this  time.  All  were  of  long 
experience  and  cool  judgment,  and  two,  Arnot 
Dosch  Fleurot  and  William  G.  Shepherd,  had  dis- 
tinguished themselves  by  the  most  brilliant  war 
reporting  the  conflict  had  brought  forth  anywhere. 
But  the  good  correspondents  in  Petrograd  could 
not  stem  the  tide  of  misrepresentation  that  went 
forth  for  the  reason  that  most  of  it  was  concocted 
outside  of  Russia.  It  was  for  this  that  the  neutral 
capitals  of  Europe  swarmed  with  German  press 
agents.  They  knew  ways  to  poison  the  news  while 
it  was  in  transit ;  they  knew  how  to  start  a  story, 
to  give  to  it  all  the  appearance  of  verity,  to  launch 
it  in  circles  that  were  above  the  least  suspicion 
and  thus  to  send  it  on  its  way  carrying  concealed 
between  its  lines  the  deadly  mandragora. 

What,  for  instance,  was  more  simple  or  more 
certain  than  to  print  in  some  newspaper  they  se- 
cretly owned  a  story  that  purported  to  be  of  grave 

10 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

official  origin  and  to  pack  its  words  around  some 
cunning  assertion  that  would  cause  Americans  to 
form  a  desired  opinion  about  Russia,  or  Russians 
to  form  a  desired  opinion  about  America?  What 
could  be  easier  than  to  flood  the  sources  of  news 
with  reports  that  were  half  truths,  twisted  to  give 
a  desired  impression? 

All  the  conditions,  therefore,  were  perfectly 
adapted  for  the  beclouding  in  this  country  of  the 
real  issues  involved  in  the  Russian  struggle,  and, 
besides  the  German  propaganda,  there  was  an- 
other agency  that  was  glad  to  use  them.  We  must 
remember  there  was  still  left  in  and  about  Russia 
a  certain  considerable  element  that  most  heartily 
wished  to  have  the  Revolution  end  in  failure.  Not 
merely  the  old  reactionary  noble  class;  that  was 
largely  shelved  or  happily  overawed.  I  mean 
chiefly  the  great  landowners,  afflicted  with  a  fear 
that  their  possessions  were  about  to  be  divided 
among  the  peasants;  many  of  the  manufacturers 
and  men  in  the  financial  interest,  who  looked  with 
quaking  terror  upon  the  Revolution's  avowed  aim 
of  a  new  basis  of  division  for  the  products  of  in- 
dustry; and  (because  of  a  phenomenon  familiar 
to  all  that  know  the  monarchical  capitals  of 
Europe)   the  socially  ambitious   in  the  foreign 

11 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

colony  of  Petrograd.  No  doubt  many  of  these 
believed  the  wild-eyed  tales  they  set  afloat  or 
helped  to  circulate;  self-deception  is  very  easy 
in  such  conditions.  Be  that  as  it  may,  through  such 
agencies  the  mind  of  America  was  abused  about 
Russia  and  two  nations  that  had  a  great  common 
cause,  a  common  inspiration  and  a  common  dan- 
ger, drifted  apart  when  they  should  have  been 
bound  together  in  closest  cooperation. 

But  as  to  the  German  propaganda,  that  marvel- 
ous institution  must  always  rank  in  history  as  one 
of  the  greatest  achievements  of  man's  wits. 
Before  the  war,  through  its  skilled  observers  here 
and  elsewhere,  it  had  studied,  not  in  vain,  the 
mental  operations  of  the  American  public  and  the 
excellences  of  the  American  newspaper.  It  under- 
stood perfectly  the  valuation  and  the  function  of 
the  "good  story"  and  knew  how  to  provide  that 
requisite  in  Stockholm  or  any  other  European 
center  no  less  than  in  Washington.  Just  as  cer- 
tainly as  Ambassador  von  BernstorfT  was  able  by 
his  adroit  manipulations  to  mislead  American 
opinion  about  the  German  atrocities  and  the  pur- 
poses for  which  Germany  made  the  war,  so  easily 
were  the  German  agents  that  swarmed  in  the  news 
centers  of  continental  Europe  able  to  start  the 

12 


NEW  EUSSIA  AND   "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

stream  of  "good  stories"  that  landed  incessantly 
upon  an  able  but  unsuspecting  press.  There  was 
at  times  a  sardonic  impudence  about  their  work 
calculated  to  take  the  breath  of  a  casual  observer. 
Perhaps  they  never  excelled  in  this  line  their 
achievement  in  seizing  a  fairly  well  known  story 
of  Anatole  France's,  localizing  it  in  Russia  and 
sending  it  to  America  as  "news."  This  seems  to 
me  about  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  go  in  this  par- 
ticular field  of  endeavor,  although  I  admit  the 
ingenuity  that  on  the  American  election  day  deliv- 
ered to  every  American  newspaper  a  dream  story 
that  Germany  had  been  "democratized"  to  have 
been  more  diabolical. 

I  think  it  will  always  seem  to  the  historical  in- 
vestigator in  times  to  come  very  strange  and  sig- 
nificant that  while  other  nations  from  1871  to  1914 
were  (under  the  shadow  and  menace  of  Bismarck- 
ism)  busily  developing  other  instruments  of  war, 
the  Germans  alone  paid  any  attention  to  the  in- 
strument destined  to  be  the  most  powerful  and 
effective.  The  British  built  up  the  dreadnaught 
and  superdreadnaught  battleships;  the  French 
devised  the  world's  most  efficient  artillery;  Amer- 
icans invented  and  bestowed  upon  others  the  sub- 
marine, the  aeroplane,  the  best  machine  guns,  the 

13 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

best  small  arms.  Only  the  Germans  turned  their 
minds  to  the  press  agency,  and  by  comparison  of 
results  that  fact  would  seem  to  give  them  some 
ground  for  their  idea  of  the  German  superman. 

They  had  taken  seriously  to  heart  the  great  les- 
son of  Bismarck  and  the  Ems  despatch  of  1870. 
If  a  clever  forger  with  a  few  strokes  of  his  pen 
could  so  influence  public  opinion  that  he  could 
precipitate  a  war,  create  an  empire  and  steal  two 
provinces,  the  manipulation  of  public  opinion  by 
whatsoever  means  had  become  the  great  factor  in 
national  success,  and  diligently  they  applied  them- 
selves to  the  art  that  Bismarck  had  indicated. 

In  any  other  country  the  notion  of  controlled 
publicity  as  a  practical  engine  of  war  would  have 
caused  at  any  time  an  intellectual  tarantelle.  It 
was  not  taught  in  the  text  books;  neither  West 
Point  nor  Sandhurst  countenanced  it.  Tradition- 
ally and  according  to  all  the  revered  authorities 
the  newspaper  was  to  the  making  of  war  an  un- 
mitigated nuisance;  only  the  Germans  thought  of 
turning  it  into  an  adjunct.  Twenty  years  their 
government  spent  in  patient,  diligent,  thoughtful 
effort  to  bring  it  to  perfection.  I  saw  it  in  opera- 
tion in  Berlin  in  1905  and  wrote  amazedly  of  it; 
but  even  the  colossal  machine  of  1905,  covering 

14 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

the  earth,  operating  in  every  printed  language, 
able  to  watch  everything  from  Nova  Zembla  to  the 
line,  from  Machias  to  Far  Cathay,  was  less  than 
the  machine  that  in  1914  poisoned  the  daily  read- 
ing and  subtly  influenced  the  thinkings  of  millions 
of  earth's  inhabitants.  On  deliberate  reflection  it 
will  seem  clear  that  this,  for  practical  results, 
overshadowed  all  the  achievements  of  a  hundred 
Krupps  and  another  hundred  Moltkes.  Without 
it  the  German  people  would  never  have  danced 
after  the  mad  pied  piper  of  world  domination  and 
world  plunder;  without  it  there  might  have  been 
no  war ;  without  it  the  United  States  could  never 
have  been  kept  standing  off  and  on  for  two  years 
and  eight  months,  an  idle  spectator  of  a  struggle 
in  which  its  own  existence  was  at  stake.  And 
without  it  the  people  of  the  United  States  could 
never  have  been  kept  from  a  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  Russia  and  the  people  of  Russia  could 
never  have  been  kept  from  a  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

From  the  first  rifle  shot  of  the  Revolution  the 
German  propaganda  had  worked  tirelessly  to  some 
such  end.  The  economic,  financial  and  influential 
conquest  of  Russia  was  old  German  strategy. 
For  years  Russia  had  been  flooded  with  German 

15 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

ideas  and  suggestions  no  less  than  with  German 
goods.  German  capital  was  developing  the  indus- 
tries of  Russia;  Germans  were  coming  to  dom- 
inate the  Russian  banks;  insidious,  clever  cam- 
paigning was  changing  Petrograd  into  a  German 
«ity.  The  imposing  German  embassy  building, 
one  of  the  largest  of  the  kind  in  the  world,  housed 
an  army  of  directing  press  and  other  agents  that 
knew  Russia  infallibly.  At  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  the  German  ambassador  withdrew  his  cor- 
poreal presence,  but  the  work  he  had  directed  went 
on  without  him.  A  vast  network  of  agents,  cover- 
ing every  part  of  the  country,  operated  a  silently 
working  and  almost  faultless  enginery  to  control 
public  opinion.  Beyond  doubt  these  agents  knew 
well  enough  that  the  Revolution  was  close  at  hand 
if  they  did  not  actually  assist  in  staging  it.  The 
instant  it  broke  they  knew  their  best  play  was  to 
separate  Russia  from  its  Allies,  and  after  nine 
months  of  incessant  work  they  were  able  to  look 
upon  that  end  as  practically  accomplished.  All 
by  the  skilful  use  of  propaganda.  A  thousand 
great  guns  had  no  such  influence  upon  the  war. 

It  was  a  triumph  won  almost  without  opposi- 
tion. Against  the  enormous  German  machine  so 
widely  dispersed,  so  cunningly  handled,  the  cause 

16 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

of  the  Allies*  went  practically  unchampioned.  I 
trust  it  will  be  perfectly  clear  that  to  say  this  im- 
plies no  censure  and  no  criticism.  Probably  no 
man  was  to  blame  that  the  Russians,  beset  with 
ingenious  falsehoods  from  Berlin,  had  never  a 
chance  to  learn  the  truth.  We  must  bear  always 
in  mind  that  the  situation  was  new  and  contra- 
dicted all  previous  experience  of  the  traditional 
agencies  of  government.  Men  are  not  to  be  cen- 
sured if  they  come  slowly  and  reluctantly  to  a 
weapon  they  have  always  despised. 

There  were  certain  other  features  of  the  case 
that  did  the  Allies'  cause  no  good,  although  I  sup- 
pose no  one  could  have  changed  them.  Men  that 
all  their  lives  have  believed  sincerely  in  a  consti- 
tutional monarchy  as  the  best  attainable  form  of 
human  government  are  not  to  be  expected  to  warm 
quickly  to  a  red,  radical  republic.    Men  that  saw 

*It  can  hardly  be  necessary  but  will  serve  to  keep  the  record 
quite  straight  if  I  recall  here  the  historical  fact  that  the  United 
States  did  not  enter  the  war  and  become  one  of  the  Allies 
until  almost  a  month  after  the  Russian  Revolution.  It  is  but 
justice  to  say  that  the  American  Ambassador,  Mr.  David  R. 
Francis,  was  the  most  popular  foreigner  in  Petrograd  and  his 
speeches  to  the  Revolutionists  are  likely  to  be  cherished  among 
the  memorials  of  those  troubled  days  as  long  as  anything  man 
said  then  shall  survive.  I  have  seen  his  carriage,  passing 
through  the  streets,  stopped  by  an  eager  throng  that  would 
not  cease  its  cheering  nor  allow  him  to  proceed  until  he  had 
stood  forth  and  delivered  one  of  his  earnest  and  sympathetic 
messages  to  the  Russian  people. 

17 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

with  dismay  a  near  relative  of  their  own  monarch 
rudely  hurled  from  his  throne  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  conceal  all  regret  at  the  dispossession. 
Human  nature  does  not  reverse  itself  for  our  con- 
venience. Men  accustomed  all  their  days  to  a 
most  rigid  system  of  caste  could  not  be  expected 
to  hail  rapturously  the  idea  of  paying  court  to 
bricklayers  and  brakemen. 

It  is  equally  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
coexistence  of  monarchy  and  democracy  in  the 
same  country  was  always  hard  to  explain  to  the 
Eussian  mind  and  many  a  Russian,  otherwise  well 
disposed,  could  never  adjust  himself  to  what 
seemed  to  him  an  anomaly  or  a  contradiction  in 
the  plea  that  the  Allies  were  the  world's  democ- 
racies fighting  against  the  monarchical  principle. 
Then,  too,  some  expressions  made  inadvertently 
and  unofficially  on  the  Allies'  side  were,  in  the 
diplomatic  phrase,  exceedingly  unfortunate,  and 
furnished  the  German  propaganda  with  material 
it  carried  to  the  very  ends  of  Russia.  Nor  was 
the  situation  helped  by  persons  that  doubtless 
with  the  best  intentions  held  the  time  ripe  and 
choice  to  lecture  the  Russians  on  the  advantages 
of  older  and  more  conservative  systems  of  gov- 
ernment, particularly  when  they  coupled  these 

18 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAE'S  WAR" 

efforts  with  somewhat  overfrank  outgivings  that 
the  Russian  experiment  was  sure  to  fail.  Almost 
any  people  at  such  a  time  would  be  likely  to 
assume  that  a  wish  fathered  such  a  thought.  King 
was  a  hateful  word  in  a  Russian's  ears  but  with 
all  his  heart  and  mind  he  worshiped  his  Revolu- 
tion. 

And  here  was  the  next  great  point  on  which  the 
Allies'  cause  went  to  wreck  in  Russia.    I  can  con- 
ceive of  no  reason  why  we  should  not  now  deal 
frankly  with  what  happened.    It  was  greater  his- 
tory making,  in  those  critical  months  in  Russia, 
than  had  hung  upon  any  battle  of  the  war  since 
the  great  days  of  The  Marne.    We  are  entitled  to 
know  the  facts  about  it.    Nothing  could  have  been 
worse  for  the  Allies'  cause  than  the  general  fail- 
ure of  the  western  mind  to  grasp  the  sacredness 
of  the  Revolution.    If  there  had  been  nothing  else, 
I   solemnly    aver    this    alone    would   have    been 
enough  to  drive  the  Allied  ship  upon  the  rocks. 
To  the  average,  typical  Russian  his  Revolution 
was  the  greatest  thing  that  had  ever  happened  in 
this  world ;  he  was  sure  of  it,  he  could  not  see  how 
there  was  the  slightest  question  about  it.    I  sus- 
pect that  the  verdict  of  the  future  will  lean  more 
to  his  opinion  than  to  that  of  his  present  day  crit- 

19 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

ics,  but  that  is  not  the  point  now;  I  am  dealing 
here  with  history,  not  prophecy.  He  saw  in  the 
Russian  Revolution  far  more  than  the  fall  of  the 
greatest  and  vilest  autocracy  of  all  modern  times ; 
he  saw  the  beginning  of  the  social  regeneration  of 
mankind.  He  saw  a  wonderful  New  Day  at  hand 
for  the  toiling  sons  of  men,  and  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution bringing  in  the  dawn.  The  very  name  of  it 
was  dear  to  him,  dearer  than  his  life,  dearer  even 
than  his  children.  To  speak  slightingly  of  the 
Revolution  was  in  his  ears  blasphemy;  anything 
that  threatened  it  touched  the  very  nerve  center 
of  all  the  resentment  in  his  nature. 

I  suppose  all  this  was  naturally  hard  for  an  out- 
sider of  other  environments  and  habits  of  thought 
to  cope  with ;  you  could  hardly  expect  old,  formal 
diplomacy  to  understand  such  a  situation.  But 
the  Germans  understood  it  perfectly  and  played 
upon  it  with  exceeding  skill  and  success.  And 
while  they  played,  some  part  of  the  Allied  citizen- 
ship at  home  and  abroad  leaned  over  their  shoul- 
ders and  kindly  assisted  by  picking  out  the  best 
keys.  German  agents,  always  starting  with  the 
basic  declaration  that  the  Russian  Revolution  was 
the  grandest  thing  in  the  history  of  the  world,  pic- 
tured the  governments  of  the  Allies  as  "imperial- 

20 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

istic,"  "capitalistic,"  "reactionary,"  "oppres- 
sive," and  all  animated  by  deadly  hatred  of  the 
Revolution.  The  masses  of  the  people  in  each  of 
the  Allied  countries  were  represented  as  utterly 
opposed  to  the  war  but  forced  into  it  by  their  capi- 
talistic rulers.  In  all  these  countries,  and  in  Ger- 
many likewise,  the  proletariat,  fired  by  the  mag- 
nificent example  of  the  Russian  people,  was  about 
to  rise,  overturn  the  existing  imperialistic  and  op- 
pressive government,  proclaim  universal  brother- 
hood and  bring  the  war  to  an  end.  All  that  was 
necessary  was  that  Russia,  turning  a  deaf  ear  to 
the  evil  suggestions  of  the  war  makers,  should 
hold  steadfast  to  her  way  wherein  she  was  the 
leader,  bearing  light  to  all  the  world. 

If  anybody  objected  that  meantime  Germany 
was  an  autocracy  the  answer  was  ready.  All  the 
Allied  governments  were  as  imperialistic  as  the 
government  of  Germany.  Each  was  carrying  on 
the  war  for  selfish  purposes  of  aggrandizement; 
each  was  a  land  thief.  Great  Britain  was  in  the 
war  only  to  seize  the  German  colonies;  France 
only  to  get  Alsace  and  Lorraine ;  Italy  only  to  get 
Trieste  and  Trentino.  When  this  argument  was 
backed  around  to  the  United  States  the  difficulty 
of  making  it  cohere  might  seem  great,  but  not  to 

21 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

these  agile  minds.  The  United  States  had  gone 
into  the  war  to  extend  its  trade  and  for  no  other 
purpose.  Besides,  the  United  States  was  as  im- 
perialistic as  any  of  the  others,  for  look  at  its 
monstrous  oppression  of  Porto  Eico,  Cuba  and 
the  Philippines.  There  was  a  strange  story  I 
found  to  be  in  common  circulation  and  belief  that 
the  United  States  had  conquered  Cuba,  wrest- 
ing it  from  its  inhabitants  and  holding  it  now  in 
hateful  subjection.  This  concoction  was  made  all 
the  more  vicious  by  the  citation  of  an  alleged 
American  authority,  a  recent  visitor  to  Eussia. 
Yes,  the  United  States  was  as  imperialistic  as  the 
rest  and  much  more  capitalistic ;  for  in  the  United 
States  the  workers  were  all  slaves  and  dared  not 
open  their  mouths  to  complain.  Yet,  even  in  the 
United  States,  the  revolt  of  the  masses  was  close 
at  hand. 

Chapters  from  the  history  of  labor  troubles  in 
America  furnished  valuable  material  for  appeals 
of  this  kind ;  the  cases,  sometimes  true  and  some- 
times fabricated,  of  men  shot  down  by  strike- 
breakers or  convicted  of  crimes  they  had  never 
committed.  But  there  were  other  things  cited 
quite  as  pungent  of  which  much  less  was  ever  re- 
ported in  this  country-     These  were  American 

22 


NEW  EUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

pacifist  or  disloyal  utterances  against  the  war, 
and  their  effect  was  to  bolster  the  assertion  that 
the  American  people  did  not  support  their  gov- 
ernment and  were  about  to  rise  against  it. 

As  they  never  heard  any  denial  of  these  asser- 
tions and  never  had  any  reason  to  doubt  them,  a 
large  part  of  the  Russian  people  became  convinced 
that  the  American  government  was  as  imperialis- 
tic as  Germany  and  that  the  name  of  republic,  un- 
der which  it  sailed,  was  in  fact,  as  so  many  of 
these  orators  asserted,  nothing  but  a  disguise  for 
what  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  monarchy. 
"America  is  no  republic,"  said  two  hundred  Ger- 
man agents  turned  loose  upon  the  Field  of  Mars 
of  a  Sunday  afternoon.  "It  is  a  monarchy  ruled 
by  thirty  kings  and  these  kings  are  its  great  finan- 
ciers and  leaders  of  big  business.  They  drove  the 
country  into  this  war  for  the  sake  of  bigger  busi- 
ness, fatter  contracts  and  more  profits." 

There  was  a  ready  soil  for  the  sowing  of  such 
seed  and  plenty  of  help  for  the  crafty  husband- 
men that  sowed  it.  The  Russians  had  heard  long 
before  and  often  about  the  great  capitalists  of 
America,  their  power  and  cunning,  and  were  in 
a  mood  to  respond  to  any  statement  that  these 
were  among  the  worst  products  of  the  social  sys- 

23 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

tern  that  for  the  good  and  freedom  of  mankind 
must  be  changed.  Also,  a  horde  of  naturalized 
Americans  and  alleged  Americans  that  were  in 
reality  anarchists,  German  agents,  or  professional 
trouble-makers,  started  for  Russia  the  instant  the 
success  of  the  Eevolution  was  safely  achieved  and 
added  themselves  and  their  propaganda  of  lies  to 
the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  Many  of  these  had 
as  their  exclusive  vocation  the  discrediting  of  the 
American  Mission;  some,  indeed,  after  the  Mis- 
sion's appointment,  had  sailed  in  advance  of  it 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  frustrating  its  efforts ;  and 
pretending  to  speak  with  authority  as  Americans 
they  were  able  to  work  an  amount  of  mischief  out 
of  all  proportion  to  anything  except  their  vicious- 
ness  and  impudence. 

I  ought  not  to  overlook  the  fact,  either,  that 
some  Russians  of  the  extreme  Left,  which  is  to 
say  the  most  radical  element,  had  a  belief  that 
republics  were  worse  enemies  of  any  radical  social 
advance  than  any  monarchies  could  be.  They  rea- 
soned that  where  workingmen  had  long  been  en- 
dowed with  the  ballot  they  became  conservative 
and  well  disposed  toward  existing  conditions, 
whereas  under  an  autocracy  there  was  always  a 
chance  of  a  proletarian  revolution  that  would  have 

24 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

momentum  enough  not  merely  to  abolish  the  politi- 
cal monarchy  but  the  entire  system  of  society  as 
at  present  constituted.  Such  men  taught  diligently 
that  the  "bourgeois  republics"  of  France  and  the 
United  States  were  really  the  greatest  obstacles 
to  their  own  particular  variety  of  the  New  Day. 
If  they  were  ever  put  to  the  test  about  such  doc- 
trines it  was  common  for  them  to  repeat  the  bald 
assertion  that  industrial  democracy  was  easily 
possible  without  political  democracy  and  much 
more  important.  Men  of  this  order  were  at  first 
few  and  of  small  influence,  but  they  had  an  always 
larger  following  as  the  situation  drifted  on  and 
they  contributed  nothing  to  the  popularity  of  the 
United  States. 

Under  these  conditions,  Russia,  all  the  time 
weary  of  war,  began  to  slip  visibly  away  from  the 
Allies.  When  they  awoke  to  this  fact  the  things 
they  did  to  keep  her  were  at  first  worse  than 
useless.  I  do  not  know  how  I  can  better  illustrate 
their  total  and  fatal  misunderstanding  of  Russia 
than  by  reciting  this  one  little  chapter  of  the  mel- 
ancholy story. 

The  government  of  the  vanished  Czar  had  made 
a  treaty  whereby  Russia  bound  itself  to  Great 
Britain  and  France  to  fight  the  war  out  to  the  end 

25 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

and  not  to  make  a  separate  peace.  This  treaty 
was  now  urged  upon  the  Eussian  people  as  a  rea- 
son why  they  should  continue  to  fight.  "You  are 
bound  by  treaty,  you  know"  (so  ran  the  argu- 
ments that  from  the  champions  of  the  Allies  I  have 
heard  and  read  hundreds  of  times) ;  "you  are  our 
Ally  and  you  must  therefore  go  on  with  us."  At 
first  the  Eussians  laughed ;  they  were  slow  to  be- 
lieve that  anyone  could  make  that  point  in  earnest. 
When  they  perceived  that  it  was  soberly  urged 
they  began  at  once  to  resent  it. 

For  the  simple  fact  was  that,  having  repudiated 
the  Czar  and  all  his  works,  they  had  not  the  slight- 
est notion  of  being  bound  by  any  of  his  treaties. 
To  their  minds  he  had  been  a  usurper,  ruling  with- 
out a  vestige  of  right  or  authority ;  therefore  noth- 
ing that  he  did,  or  said,  or  agreed  to,  meant  any- 
thing or  could  mean  anything  to  the  Eussian  peo- 
ple, for  he  had  never  the  least  mandate  from  them 
to  be  their  executive.  They  had  no  more  sane- 
tioned  him  or  his  government  than  they  had  sanc- 
tioned a  government  on  the  other  hemisphere ;  he 
had  no  more  right  to  rule  Eussia  than  he  had  to 
rule  America;  his  treaties  meant  no  more  to  the 
Eussians  than  they  meant  to  the  Siamese.  The 
Eussia  of  today  was  not  in  any  possible  sense  an 

26 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

inheritor,  successor  or  assignee  of  the  Russia  of 
the  Czar.  It  was  an  entirely  different  Russia,  new 
born  and  born  free.  "Tell  us  nothing  about  the 
Czar's  alliances,"  men  said.  "All  that  is  the 
blown  dust  of  antiquity.  Russia  has  opened  an 
entirely  new  set  of  books." 

This  view,  although  to  anyone  that  really  ac- 
cepts the  people  as  the  one  source  of  governmental 
authority  it  will  seem  reasonable  and  logical, 
some  of  the  Allies  never  understood.  Their 
failure  to  grasp  it  was  a  crushing  defeat.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  whole  cause  of  the 
Allies  pivoted  on  a  sympathetic  knowledge  of  New 
Russia  and  this  point  was  the  vital  expression  of 
such  knowledge.  The  more,  with  a  fatuous  and 
lamentable  blindness,  they  urged  the  treaties  and 
the  obligation  of  honor  to  fulfil  them  the  worse 
they  made  the  situation.  That  they  raised  the 
point  at  all  was  enough  for  many  a  thoughtful 
Russian,  at  first  well-disposed  toward  the  Allied 
Cause.  It  proved  to  him  that  the  Allies  did  not 
sympathize  with  the  Revolution  and  did  not  wish 
it  to  succeed.  Otherwise  how  could  they  pretend 
for  a  moment  that  an  autocratic  government  could 
mortgage  the  actions  of  the  democracy  that  had 
overthrown  it? 

27 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

All  this  time  there  was  another  style  of  appeal 
that  would  have  been  effective,  and  the  Allies 
never  seemed  to  think  of  it.  "Wise  men  like  Pla- 
conoff  and  Krapotkin  continually  urged  it,  but  no- 
body heeded  them.  It  was  to  point  out  and  insist 
upon  the  fact  (which  was  to  be  demonstrated  to 
all  when  too  late)  that  Germany  was  the  deadly 
foe  of  the  Revolution ;  that  until  she  had  been  de- 
feated no  man  need  hope  for  democracy  anywhere ; 
that  so  long  as  she  was  powerful  and  under  arms 
the  life  of  the  new-born  Russian  democracy  was  in 
peril. 

If  from  the  beginning  the  Russians  had  been 
convinced  of  this  there  would  have  been  no  Brest- 
Litovsk  negotiations  and  no  breaking  of  the  Rus- 
sian line. 

There  was  another  great  key  fact  in  the  situa- 
tion, so  plain  it  stood  forth  like  a  great  rock  in  a 
desert  land  and  yet  was  strangely  ignored  by 
those  to  whom  it  should  have  been  most  significant. 
It  was  that  here  for  the  first  time  in  human  his- 
tory had  been  erected  a  working  class  government. 
Whatever  show  there  might  be  at  certain  times 
and  in  certain  places  of  soft  white  hands,  the  only 
hands  that  actually  moved  any  of  the  levers  of 
government  were  hands  rough  with  toil  and  fresh 

28 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND   "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

from  the  plow  handle.  The  Czar  was  gone ;  in  his 
place  the  peasantry  was  crowned  absolute  mler 
of  Russia.  It  seemed  strange  to  me  then  and 
seems  stranger  now  in  retrospect  that  so  many 
men  whose  business  was  to  pluck  out  the  very 
heart  of  existing  fact  irrespective  of  prejudice 
were  able  to  blind  themselves  to  this  most  impor- 
tant fact  of  all.  The  fate  of  the  whole  Allied  cause 
might  lie  in  the  hands  of  Russia;  the  decision  of 
Russia  lay  exclusively  with  its  toilers.  Whether 
men  liked  it  or  disliked  it,  this  was  the  truth.  Men 
might  as  well  have  thought  of  bringing  their  per- 
sonal prejudices  to  bear  against  the  physical  fact 
of  a  glacier.  These  toilers  might  seem  rude  and 
uncultured  persons ;  they  might  be  led  of  strange 
dreams;  they  might  indeed  be  "lured  astray  by 
the  pernicious  theories  of  the  Bolshevics";  they 
might  be  "mad  fanatics,"  "crazy  Utopians,"  or 
deserve  any  or  all  of  the  other  pleasing  names  so 
wisely  bestowed  upon  them  by  some  of  the  Ameri- 
can editors.  Nevertheless,  Russia  controlled  the 
situation  for  the  Allies  and  these  men  controlled 
Russia.  If  there  were  nothing  involved  but  ordi- 
nary prudence  it  would  seem  well  to  acknowledge 
the  facts  of  their  position. 
But  so  strong  are  the  fixed  habits  of  men's  minds 

29 


UNCHAINED  BUSSIA 

that  in  spite  of  these  actualities,  as  plain  as  day 
to  any  observation,  most  of  the  Allied  representa- 
tives clung  resolutely  to  the  fiction  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  Russia  must  be  like  the  government  of 
other  countries.  They  continued  to  assume,  for 
instance,  that  in  Russia  men  of  wealth  or  rank  or 
learning  or  business  eminence  or  moldy  political 
distinction  or  social  fame  or  recognized  standing 
in  the  world  of  the  elect  must  surely  be  important 
factors  in  the  existing  situation.  Such  men  were 
a  power  everywhere  else,  so  assuredly  they  must 
be  a  power  here.  It  is  the  literal  truth  that  all  of 
such  men  together  had  less  influence  than  a  sin- 
gle teamster  from  the  streets  of  Petrograd  or  a 
towsled-headed  farmer  from  the  Caucasus.  That 
a  man  had  money  or  had  been  prominent  in  finance 
or  a  leader  in  the  best  circles,  instead  of  being  any 
recommendation  for  him,  was  become  reason 
enough  why  he  should  be  now  of  the  least  esteem. 
The  entire  element  that  elsewhere  is  considered 
admirable  and  influential  was  here  thrown  into  the 
discard;  the  useful  had  become  the  honorable  in 
deed  and  in  truth,  and  to  an  extent  previous  users 
of  that  phrase  had  hardly  dreamed  of.  That  a 
man  should  be  listened  to,  it  was  necessary  that 
he  should  be  of  the  workers  or  have  so  proved  his 

30 


NEW  KUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

allegiance  to  the  workers '  cause  that  there  was  not 
a  fleck  of  doubt  upon  his  record.  Even  Intel- 
lectuals like  Miliukoff  that  had  long  stood  forth 
as  political  reformers  and  in  the  old  days  had 
gone  to  prison  for  their  radical  faith  were  now 
found  to  lag  too  far  in  the  rearward  of  the  pro- 
cession for  anyone  to  hear  them.  It  was  the  voice 
of  the  proletariat  and  the  proletariat  alone  that 
was  heeded. 

Whether  all  this  was  good  or  bad  is  not  the  point 
here.  The  point  is  that  the  Allies  never  grasped 
the  primary  fact  of  the  situation  and  so  brought 
their  disaster  on  their  own  heads.  There  seemed 
to  be  no  way  to  make  it  clear  in  most  of  the  Allied 
capitals  that  here  was  an  entirely  new  experiment 
in  human  government  and  it  must  be  handled  in 
an  entirely  new  way.  The  methods  and  precedents 
of  traditional  diplomacy  were  doubtless  very  pre- 
cious but  it  happened  that  they  would  not  work  in 
this  instance.  No  one  need  wonder  that  gentle- 
men steeped  all  their  lives  in  the  solemn  pon- 
derosities, stilted  verbiage  and  elaborate  red  tape 
of  an  international  intercourse  buttressed  by  the 
ages  should  be  unable  to  conceive  of  a  state  of 
society  in  which  all  this  would  excite  merely  sav- 
age ridicule.    It  is  to  be  assumed  that  none  of  the 

31 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

statesmen  of  Europe  were  blameworthy  for  not 
seeing  a  change  so  startling,  but  the  fact  that  they 
did  not  was  none  the  less  calamitous.  If  they  had 
been  wise  enough  to  leave  things  alone  the  results 
might  not  have  been  so  wholly  disastrous,  but  the 
truth  is  they  not  only  ignored  the  great  change  but 
they  persisted  in  proceeding  as  if  the  old  regime 
were  still  in  full  swing.  A  party  of  these  formal 
diplomats  with  their  long  black  coats,  silk  hats 
and  air  of  portentous  and  inhuman  gravity  would 
have  been  glaringly  out  of  place  in  the  crowd  of 
flannel-shirted  and  hard-handed  farmers  and 
blacksmiths  that  were  now  in  charge  of  the  gov- 
ernment, but  not  so  incongruous  as  the  ideas  of 
graveyard  diplomacy  that  the  old  style  statesmen 
would  have  represented.  These  are  the  facts  in 
the  case.  Whether  they  were  to  be  liked  or  dis- 
liked made  again  no  difference.  They  existed ;  the 
situation  demanded  that  they  should  be  recog- 
nized; they  were  not  recognized  and  the  natural 
results  followed. 

There  was  another  place  where  most  of  the 
statesmanship  went  wrong  and  that  was  in  its  un- 
alterable attitude  toward  what  was  called  the  cabi- 
net. In  spite  of  all  the  evidence  to  the  contrary, 
many  eminent  minds  always  insisted  upon  regard- 

32 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND   "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

ing  this  figure-head  and  marionette  institution  aa 
the  government  of  Russia.  It  was  no  more  the 
government  of  Russia  than  was  the  table  around 
which  it  sat.  Much  ado  was  made  about  changes 
in  this  ministry,  whether  to  have  this  man  as  Min- 
ister of  Finance  and  that  man  as  Minister  of  Rail- 
roads were  well  or  ill,  when  these  changes  were  of 
little  more  importance  than  the  dismissal  of  one 
stenographer  and  the  hiring  of  another.  Finally, 
the  greatest  stress  was  laid  upon  the  selection  of 
a  prime  minister,  or  president  of  the  cabinet,  and 
nothing  could  more  plainly  show  the  total  mis- 
understanding of  the  Russian  situation.  For  con- 
trary to  the  universal  belief  in  the  United  States, 
no  prime  minister  of  Russia,  from  the  day  of  the 
Revolution  to  the  fall  of  the  First  Republic,  at 
least,  had  the  slightest  chance  of  being  Russia's 
Napoleon,  Moses,  dictator  or  savior.  Not  one  of 
them  had  any  more  real  power  over  the  destinies 
of  Russia  than  any  other  good,  competent,  indus- 
trious department  administrator  might  have. 

All  the  time  that  most  citizens  of  the  Allied 
countries  were  looking  for  light  and  leading  to  a 
collection  of  excellent  and  worthy  bureau  chiefs, 
the  real  government  of  Russia  went  on  almost 
without  the  world's  notice.    The  real  government 

33 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

of  Russia  was  centered  in  the  National  Soviet,  or 
National  Council.  Here  was  the  real  power,  abso- 
lute, final,  indisputable ;  of  the  will  of  the  Soviet 
the  cabinet  of  ministers  was  the  visible  expression 
and  instrument,  simply  this  and  nothing  more; 
and  so  long  as  the  Soviet  was  in  existence  or  could 
be  summoned  or  elected  there  was  no  more  chance 
that  any  man  could  make  himself  the  dictator  of 
Russia  than  that  he  could  control  the  tides  of  the 
sea. 

The  original  title  of  the  Soviet  (in  English)  was 
the  National  Council  of  Workmen's  and  Soldiers' 
Deputies.  It  consisted  of  830  delegates  elected  by 
universal  suffrage  from  every  part  of  the  Russian 
dominions.  Most  of  the  delegates  were  peasants ; 
most  of  any  body  so  chosen  in  Russia  would  be 
peasants.  To  make  the  title  more  consistent  it 
was  amended  after  a  time  to  be  the  National  Coun- 
cil of  Workmen's,  Soldiers'  and  Peasants'  Dep- 
uties. It  governed  Russia  in  somewhat  the  way 
that  the  House  of  Commons  governs  Great  Britain 
at  such  times  as  the  British  parliament  has  not 
abdicated,  except  that  the  Russian  cabinet  was 
much  more  truly  and  directly  under  the  control  of 
the  Soviet.  Even  in  minor  matters,  about  which 
ministers  usually  have  a  liberal  choice  of  action, 

34 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND   "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

the  members  of  the  Russian  cabinet  felt  unfree  to 
deal  without  the  Soviet's  sanction. 

An  incident  in  the  too  brief  stay  of  the  Ameri- 
can Mission  illustrates  the  relations  between  the 
cabinet  and  the  real  masters  of  Russia.  The  work 
of  the  Mission  naturally  divided  itself  in  accord- 
ance with  the  experiences  or  special  aptitudes  of 
the  members.  Two  were  in  urgent  need  of  certain 
detailed  information  of  a  statistical  nature.  They 
sought  it  of  the  Minister  in  whose  department  the 
matter  properly  belonged.  Day  after  day  passed 
but  there  came  from  that  department  nothing  more 
serviceable  than  promises.  On  Monday  the  infor- 
mation would  be  ready  at  10  o'clock  Tuesday;  at 
10  o'clock  Tuesday  it  would  be  ready  that  after- 
noon at  4;  that  afternoon  at  4  it  would  be  ready 
the  next  morning  at  11.  Nearly  two  weeks  slipped 
by  with  no  other  result  than  this.  One  night  the 
member  of  the  Mission  that  attended  the  National 
Council  put  the  whole  story  before  the  Council's 
Committee  on  Finance ;  the  committee  on  the  spot 
adopted  an  order  to  the  Minister  to  produce  the 
matter  desired  at  2  o'clock  the  next  day  or  be  sum- 
moned before  the  Council  at  8,  and  at  2  o  'clock  the 
information  desired  was  produced. 

I  cite  this  incident  to  show  the  nature  of  the 

35 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

real  power  that  not  only  directed  the  ministry  but 
controlled  the  destiny  of  Russia. 

But  if  the  Soviet  seemed  of  little  moment  to  the 
Allies,  it  was  far  otherwise  with  the  Germans. 
German  agents  swarmed  around  the  Cadetsky 
Corpus  where  the  meetings  were  held;  German 
agents  were  even  members  of  the  Council  itself 
and  put  forth  covert  but  effective  efforts  to  help 
the  German  cause.  From  the  beginning  Germany 
had  made  a  far  better  survey  of  the  situation  than 
the  Allies  had  made,  for  Germany  perceived  at 
once  in  whose  hands  the  decision  would  lie  and 
wasted  no  time  on  cabinets,  ministers,  nor  long- 
coated  diplomats.  Von  Bernstorff  in  Washington 
amazed  all  observers  by  his  unerring  perception  of 
the  fact  that  in  the  United  States  the  one  agency 
important  to  convince  was  the  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple. Similarly  in  Russia,  the  German  agents  took 
the  full  measure  of  the  new  propulsive  force  and 
adjusted  themselves  to  it.  They  understood  well 
enough  that  the  inspiration  of  the  Russian  leaders 
was  chiefly  an  altruistic  vision  of  universal 
brotherhood,  good  will  and  cooperation,  and  upon 
this  they  played  incessantly.  They  pointed  to  a 
world  drenched  in  blood  and  tears,  a  world  weary 
of  war,  and  then  to  Russia  as  leading  mankind 

36 


NEW  RUSSIA  AND   "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

to  peace,  sanity,  friendship  and  the  new  social 
system.  To  anyone  that  saw  what  was  going  on 
behind  the  curtain  the  contrast  between  these  tac- 
tics and  the  arguments  of  some  of  the  Allies'  rep- 
resentatives concerning  the  sacredness  of  the 
Czar's  treaties  was  most  disturbing.  While  the 
Germans  were  using  the  very  best  appeal  the 
Allies  were  using  the  worst. 

From  the  first  it  had  been  so  with  the  German 
maneuvers;  it  was  so  now  in  the  marvelously 
adroit  ways  by  which  German  agents  continued 
to  misrepresent  to  the  newspaper  readers  of  the 
world  the  true  aspects  of  the  Russian  status.  In 
the  hands  of  such  cunning,  able  and  unscrupulous 
manipulators  the  patriotic  but  unsuspecting 
American  press  was  tricked  with  a  duplex  system 
of  rascality  that  might  have  fooled  the  elect. 
Stories  were  manufactured  and  sent  over  here  to 
show  that  in  Russia  was  nothing  but  chaos,  anar- 
chy, and  devastation ;  only  maniacs  were  listened 
to,  only  raving  was  their  object.  When  the  Amer- 
ican press  had  properly  denounced  such  condi- 
tions its  criticisms  were  gathered,  translated  into 
Russian  and  widely  circulated  among  the  Russian 
people  to  convince  them  that  it  was  really  true,  as 
they  had  been  so  often  told,  that  America  was  the 

37 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

foe  of  the  Revolution.  Under  the  existing  condi- 
tions I  do  not  know  of  any  ready-made  machinery 
that  would  have  met  this  devilish  contrivance. 
Yet  I  cannot  help  remarking  that  often  I  had 
reason  to  wish  the  editors  of  my  native  land  had 
a  larger  sense  of  the  geographical  aspects  of 
humor.  Doubtless  it  was  very  funny  to  write  in 
the  United  States  sarcastic  paragraphs  about  the 
Bolshevics  and  the  ignorant  Russian,  but  there 
was  very  little  fun  in  standing  on  the  Field  of 
Mars  and  hearing  that  paragraph  read  to  a  crowd 
of  indignant  Russians. 

The  net  result  of  all  the  German  machinations 
was  that  they  overwhelmed  the  Allies  on  a  field 
never  wisely  nor  efficiently  contested.  It  was  true 
enough  that  Russia  was  sick  of  the  war  and  had 
every  reason  to  be.  Nothing  like  the  slaughter  of 
Russian  troops  had  ever  been  known ;  the  old  Rus- 
sian government  had  thrown  away  the  lives  of  men 
like  so  much  rubbish.  Up  to  the  Revolution  the 
Russian  casualties  had  been  more  than  7,000,000, 
in  shambles  we  seem  prone  to  forget  it  we  ever 
knew  of  them.  But  it  was  also  true  that  given 
anything  to  fight  for  the  Russian  was  still  one  of 
the  best  fighters  in  the  world.  The  great  fact  was 
always  being  overlooked  that  in  the  war  up  to  the 

38 


NEW  EUSSIA  AND  "THE   CZAR'S  WAR" 

Revolution  he  had  nothing  to  fight  for.  By  a  gov- 
ernment he  detested  he  had  been  ordered  forth  to 
risk  his  life  in  a  cause  he  knew  nothing  about.  He 
obeyed  because  he  had  on  the  whole  less  reason  to 
fear  the  enemy  in  front  than  his  tyrannical  gov- 
ernment at  home,  but  there  was  always  bitter  re- 
sentment in  his  heart ;  dull,  unformulated,  vague, 
maybe,  but  still  a  hatred  for  the  bloody  work  in 
hand  and  a  feeling  that  it  was  nothing  in  which  he 
had  any  interest.  At  last  he  had  rid  himself  of 
the  monstrous  government  that  had  thus  imposed 
upon  him  a  purely  arbitrary  power.  The  war  into 
which  that  power  had  forced  him  had  been  to  him 
a  nightmare  of  senseless  horrors;  there  was 
mourning  in  almost  every  household  because  of 
it;  all  for  the  Czar,  all  for  this  hideous  system 
of  wrong,  the  mere  memory  of  which  filled  him 
with  loathing  and  rage.  And  he  was  asked 
now  to  continue  to  fight,  to  shed  his  blood  and  to 
postpone  the  New  Day  so  dear  in  his  dreams,  all 
for  the  sake  of  a  quarrel  of  this  hated  Czar  that 
he  had  harried  forth !  Why  was  it  any  quarrel  of 
Russia's,  the  new  Russia,  free  now  from  every 
other  taint  of  this  accursed  Czarism?  Why  should 
the  Czar's  war,  the  worst  of  all  his  works,  be  still 
fastened  upon  the  Russia  that  had  thrown  off  all 

39 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

the  other  evils  inherited  from  the  same  polluted 
source?  And  above  all,  why  should  a  quarrel  of 
the  Czar's  keep  the  proletariat  of  Russia  from 
being  friends  with  the  proletariats  of  other  coun- 
tries, their  brethren  and  natural  allies? 

This  is  the  way  he  felt,  and  however  he  may  be 
open  otherwise  to  criticism  I  admit  that  I  have 
not  been  able  to  find  a  flaw  in  his  reasoning,  so 
far  as  it  went.  But  there  was  always  the  one 
great  point  he  never  reached  that  would  have 
changed  altogether  his  convictions  as  to  the  neces- 
sity of  fighting;  he  never  sensed  Germany's  rela- 
tion to  democracy.  And  to  bring  that  point  home 
to  him  almost  no  effort  was  made.  For  the  Revo- 
lution the  Russian  would  fight  to  the  last  drop  of 
his  blood ;  for  a  quarrel  of  the  Czar's  he  cared  not 
a  straw,  and  would  not  care;  yet  the  customary 
appeal  to  him  was  that  he  should  fight  in  a  quarrel 
of  the  Czar's  and  not  to  preserve  the  Revolution. 

For  months  the  question  in  the  mind  of  every 
Allied  citizen  was  whether  Russia  would  continue 
to  fight  or  would  throw  down  her  arms.  For  the 
reasons  outlined  here  she  elected  to  throw  down 
her  arms.  I  assume  that  what  is  wanted  now  is 
the  truth  about  this  historic  situation.  Here, 
then,  is  the  truth,  however  unpalatable. 

40 


CHAPTEE  II 
THE  REAL  PROPULSION  AND  THE  REAL  HOPE 

For  weeks  after  the  Revolution  of  March, 
1917,  published  views  about  Russia  were  so  diverse 
and  the  news  despatches  were  so  often  contradic- 
tory that  a  general  impression  in  this  country 
was  of  hopeless  confusion.  People  often  thought 
of  Russia  as  of  a  vast,  dimly  lighted  stage  where- 
on they  knew  a  drama  was  being  enacted  of  over- 
whelming importance  to  the  world  but  where  all 
the  actors  seemed  to  be  running  about  inconse- 
quentially in  a  maze  without  plan  or  meaning. 

Yet  the  keys  to  the  play  were,  after  all,  simple 
and  made  of  familiar  elements  of  human  progress, 
modified  (as  always  happens)  by  temperament,  in- 
stitutions and  ideals. 

There  is  a  place  on  the  Trans-Siberian  Railroad 
called  Passing  Point  Number  37,  a  small  brown 
speck  on  the  illimitable  emptiness  of  the  Siberian 
plains.  On  the  23d  of  May,  1917,  there  came 
marching  up  to  it  a  procession  of  farmers — about 
forty  of  them,  I  think — carrying  red  flags.    They 

41 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

tramped  solemnly  along  what  in  Siberia,  by  a  vio- 
lence of  speech,  is  called  a  road,  and  is  in  fact  not 
otherwise  than  a  trail  of  ruts  in  black  gumbo  mud. 

A  passenger-train  was  coming  from  the  east, 
from  Vladivostok.  At  Passing  Point  Number  37 
it  took  the  sidetrack  to  wait  for  the  train  it  was  to 
meet.  According  to  Eussian  railroad  practice 
(which  you  might  think  a  precept  of  religion  punc- 
tiliously observed)  the  operation  of  getting  these 
two  trains  past  each  other  was  to  consume  one 
half-hour,  liberally  inundated  with  swift  and 
cheerful  conversation. 

Some  of  the  passengers  got  out  and  swelled  the 
verbal  freshets.  They  talked  with  the  ambulatory 
peasants;  the  peasants  responded  with  joyous 
alacrity  and  no  impediments  of  utterance  that  one 
could  notice.  It  was  after  the  Eevolution ;  there- 
fore more  than  two  men  could  talk  together  in 
public  without  being  prodded  by  a  superactive 
gendarmerie ;  and  a  stranger  might  have  thought 
that  springs  of  speech,  frozen  for  three  hundred 
years  in  Russian  breasts,  had  burst  forth  into 
grateful  and  tireless  fountains. 

Of  a  sudden  the  processionists  were  seen  to  line 
up  in  front  of  the  baggage-car,  to  fall  upon  their 
knees  there,  to  lift  their  hands  in  attitudes  of 

42 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

prayer,  the  while  they  uttered  strange,  wailing 
cries  and  many  wept. 

What  were  they  crying  about1?  They  had 
learned  that  in  the  baggage-car  were  the  ashes  of 
a  Russian  revolutionist,  an  old-time  hero  of  the 
long,  long  struggle.  He  had  been  condemned  by 
the  Czar  to  one  of  the  worst  prisons  of  coldest 
Siberia ;  he  had  managed  to  escape  and  in  the  end 
to  get  to  America.  There  he  died,  and  his  body 
was  cremated.  Now  his  ashes  in  a  draped  me- 
morial urn  were  being  carried  in  state  back  to  that 
free  Russia  he  had  dreamed  of  and  suffered  for. 
But  note : 

Of  the  peasants  that  fell  on  their  knees  before 
that  handful  of  dust  that  day-  about  one-half  could 
not  read.  All  of  them,  you  might  think,  lived  in  a 
region  literally  farther  from  the  world  and  its  af- 
fairs than  is  Cape  Nome  or  the  Dry  Tortugas. 
Yet  all  of  them  knew  well  enough  the  name  of  this 
dead  hero  and  all  his  deeds,  and  instinctively  all 
knelt  before  his  ashes  that  they  might  testify  at 
once  to  their  reverence  for  him  and  the  fervor  of 
their  own  revolutionary  faith. 

After  which  there  were  speeches.  To  assert 
this  of  any  assembly  anywhere  in  New  Russia, 
Russia  of  the  unchained  tongue  and  the  suddenly 

43 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

released  soul,  was  in  those  days  almost  superflu- 
ous. Let  there  be  a  meeting  of  any  kind  and 
speeches  came  as  infallibly  as  the  tea  and  much 
oftener. 

But  what  did  that  procession  mean,  wandering 
red-flagged  along  the  black  ruts  of  lonely  Siberia? 
It  meant  that  the  peasants  were  making  a  "dem- 
onstration." Demonstration  about  what?  Dem- 
onstration against  the  sentence  of  death  that  the 
Austrian  government  had  about  that  time  secured 
against  Frederick  Adler,  the  assassin  of  the  Aus- 
trian prime  minister ! 

And  that  is  Eussia.  I  offer  you  herewith  the 
keys  to  the  play. 

Because  you  find  in  this  one  little  incident  these 
things,  perfectly  typical,  truly  fundamental: 

The  Eussian  temperament  and  character,  emo- 
tional, sympathetic,  altruistic,  generous,  and  quite 
indifferent  to  conventionalities; 

The  passion  for  "demonstrating,"  the  tremen- 
dous impulse  to  let  go  with  the  feelings  brutally 
suppressed  so  long  by  the  monarchy  now  dead 
and  gone,  thank  God  for  his  infinite  mercies; 

The  passion  for  oratory; 

The  warm,  naive  and  somewhat  dreamy  feeling 

44 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

for  the  universal  brotherhood  and  the  sense  of  a 
world-wide  cause. 

That  there  was  anything  incongruous  about  a 
demonstration  in  Russia  by  Russians  against  Aus- 
tria's execution  of  the  death  penalty  upon  an  Aus- 
trian in  Austria  at  a  time  when  Russia  and  Austria 
were  at  war  would  never  occur  to  them.  Are  not 
the  workers  of  Russia,  Austria,  and  all  other 
countries  brothers?  Is  not  a  wrong  done  to  a 
member  of  the  proletariat  in  Austria  the  affair  of 
members  of  the  proletariat  everywhere?  As- 
suredly, comrades.  Then  let  us  demonstrate — 
even  in  remote  Siberia,  where  nobody  will  ever 
know  anything  about  it. 

Also,  you  may  see  in  this  incident  how  deep  in 
the  heart  of  every  peasant  and  toiler  were  the 
rudiments  at  least  of  the  Revolution's  creed,  how 
widespread  a  fair  understanding  of  the  Revolu- 
tion's history  and  meaning — spread  even  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  prodigious  country,  spread 
when  there  were  no  modern  means  of  communica- 
tion, before  there  were  public  schools,  when  there 
was  no  right  of  assembly,  no  free  press  and  very 
little  reading,  and  yet,  for  a  marvel,  spread  com- 
Detently. 

In  the  light  of  this  manifestation  it  seemed  that 

45 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

even  the  most  timid  doubter  might  take  heart  of 
grace  and  be  reassured  that  whatever  else  might 
happen,  granted  only  that  no  outside  power  was 
allowed  to  break  in,  the  old  order  was  gone  for- 
ever from  Russia.  If  the  people  in  this  remote 
region  had  so  great  a  fire  for  liberty  and  so  clear 
a  knowledge  of  it,  the  black  blight  of  the  Czar 
would  never  come  back.  The  tides  of  democracy 
might  ebb  and  flow,  there  might  be  strange  con- 
fusions and  bitter  struggles,  but  the  Russian  peo- 
ple having  tasted  freedom  would  remain  free  to 
the  end.  They  might  rule  themselves  well  or  they 
might  rule  themselves  ill,  but  henceforth  they 
alone  would  rule. 

Yet  it  was,  philosophically  considered,  little 
wonder  that  the  world,  sitting  at  such  an  unprece- 
dented play,  blinked  and  was  doubtful.  There  was 
one  day  the  imposing  great  structure  of  the  most 
powerful  autocracy  on  earth,  centuries  old,  rock- 
rooted,  imperial  and  irresistible,  cloud-compelling 
and  remorseless.  At  a  touch  it  crumbled  together 
like  the  unsubstantial  figment  of  a  dream ;  vanish- 
ing without  a  trace,  as  if  it  had  never  been.  Intri- 
cate, great  systems  of  government,  of  police,  of 
spies,  of  punishments,  erected  with  long  care  and 
skill  to  keep  the  people  down,  all,  all  dried  up  and 

46 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

blown  away  like  a  mist,  and  behold  these  same 
subjugated  people  instantly  and  easily  taking  seats 
in  a  new  machine,  untried,  just  from  the  shops, 
and  handling  the  controlling  levers — with  aplomb 
and  for  a  time,  at  least,  with  a  considerable  show 
of  success. 

No  wonder,  I  say,  some  spectators  gasped  and 
were  puzzled.  To  the  rigid,  rectangular  English 
mind,  to  the  American  mind  that  tries  hard  to  be 
like  the  English,  all  this  was  not  in  nature.  It 
was  so  different  from  Chelmsford  Abbey,  Eng- 
land, and  St.  Johnsbury  in  Vermont,  that  it  must 
surely  be  bad.  After  all,  and  truth  to  tell,  faith 
in  the  popular  intelligence  is  not  much  of  an 
Anglo-Saxon  trait.  What  there  is  of  such  intelli- 
gence, we  think,  must  be  the  product  of  long  edu- 
cation, of  training  and  of  reading— much  reading. 
But  here  was  a  country  where  only  a  few  years 
ago  80  per  cent,  of  the  population  could  not  read 
at  all;  where  the  few  newspapers  were  frankly 
corrupted  and  fiercely  censored  by  the  monarchy. 
Yet  out  of  all  this,  lo,  a  people,  by  our  narrow 
creed  called  unenlightened,  who  not  only  had  a 
fine  sense  of  liberty  but  being  entrusted  with  the 
machinery  of  democratic  government  displayed 
an  extraordinary  avidity  for  its  problems. 

47 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

Plain,  every-day  working  people,  farmers  right 
from  the  plow,  laborers  from  the  factories,  pro- 
ducers and  toilers,  the  "base  mechanicals"  of 
Elizabeth's  famous  sneer,  the  "common  working- 
men"  of  our  own  beautiful  snobbery.  The  nobles, 
the  wealthy,  the  middle  class,  the  Intelligentsia, 
the  propertied,  the  financial  geniuses,  the  merchant 
princes,  the  employers  here  practically  eliminated 
from  public  affairs.  The  Man  with  the  Hoe  had 
come  literally  into  his  own  at  last. 

I  dwell  on  this  fact  because  it  had  potent  and 
far-reaching  effects.  We  may  as  well  admit  that 
this  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  many  persons  in 
the  Allied  countries  did  not  like  the  change  in 
Eussia  and  were  at  no  pains  to  hide  their  discon- 
tent. I  think  with  pride  on  the  fact  that  there  was 
less  of  this  feeling  in  America  than  in  some  other 
quarters,  but  even  here  was  no  lack  of  persons 
that  found  the  idea  of  literal  and  uncompromising 
democracy  highly  indigestible. 

Nevertheless,  that  was  the  essence  of  the  situa- 
tion in  Russia — democracy  stripped  down  to  its 
plainest  terms  and  accepted  unflinchingly.  For 
in  Russia  the  conditions  familiar  in  other  countries 
that  have  political  freedom  and  the  ballot  box  had 
been  turned  the  other  way  about.    In  Russia  Labor 

48 


ftEAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

did  not  take  orders ;  it  gave  them.  For  here  Labor, 
being  in  an  absolute  majority,  had  assumed  com- 
mand, and  nobody  else  had  a  word  to  say  about 
the  running  of  the  machine.  The  bare,  astonishing 
fact  stood  before  the  world  that  the  country  was 
being  governed  by  about  such  peasants  as  marched 
through  the  mud  to  Passing  Station  Number  37 
in  Siberia  and  animated  by  about  such  impulses 
as  caused  them  to  demonstrate  against  the  killing 
of  a  man  in  Austria  and  to  fall  on  their  knees  be- 
fore the  ashes  of  a  revolutionist. 

All  this  under  the  red  flag! 

Perhaps  it  was  the  color  of  that  flag  that  most 
distressed  the  Americans  and  Englishmen  that 
found  themselves  so  completely  out  of  sympathy 
with  these  upturnings.  With  us  the  red  flag  had 
always  signified  detestable  anarchy,  violence, 
blood,  riot  and  ruin.  In  Russia  it  was  now  flying 
everywhere  and  under  it  moved  a  people  that 
manifestly  had  no  taste  for  any  of  the  horrors  of 
which  the  red  flag  was  supposed  to  be  the  symptom, 
but  loved  peace  and  order.  From  Vladivostok  to 
the  Baltic  and  from  Turkestan  to  the  Arctic  Circle, 
the  simple  red  flag,  without  device,  was  the  only 
flag  to  be  seen.  It  had  become  the  national  ensign 
of  Russia,  superseding  all  others.    In  some  of  the 

49 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

Allied  countries — shall  I  say  our  own? — the  inno- 
vation caused  perplexity  and  even  pain.  It  was 
desired  to  keep  flying  the  flags  of  the  Allies,  but 
in  some  states  of  the  Union  the  mere  hoisting  of  a 
red  flag  had  been  made  a  statutory  offense  and 
nearly  everywhere  else  the  sight  of  it  was  calcu- 
lated to  cause  shudders  in  many  a  well  regulated 
household.  Yet  there  was  the  undeniable  fact  that 
officially  the  plain  and  unadorned  flag  of  red 
alone  could  signify  Russia.  In  some  quarters 
the  difficulty  was  avoided,  not  very  deftly,  one 
may  think,  by  flying  the  flag  of  the  old  Russian 
merchantman,  red,  blue  and  white,  although  this 
was  no  more  nearly  accurate  than  the  flag  of 
Sweden  would  be,  or  the  flag  of  Argentina. 

Yet  the  red  flag,  as  flown  by  the  new  Russian  de- 
mocracy, had  none  of  the  horrifying  suggestions 
that  timid  souls  here  would  give  to  it.  Contrary 
to  the  general  belief,  it  did  not  mean  anarchy,  ar- 
son, barratry,  treason,  stratagems  or  spoils.  There 
was  all  the  time  I  was  in  Petrograd  a  group  of 
Anarchists  making  desperate  efforts  to  cling  to  the 
skirts  of  passing  events  and  as  often  as  might  be 
shift  into  the  spot  light.  They  used  to  parade 
whenever  they  could,  and  carry  always  with  them 
their  flag,  and  I  take  pleasure  in  relieving  the 

50 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

anxious  cares  of  the  timid  by  saying  that  the 
anarchists '  flag  was  black  and  not  red.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  red  flag,  as  adopted  by  the  new  Russian 
democracy,  was  universal  brotherhood,  simply 
that  and  nothing  more.  All  the  blood  in  all  the 
veins  of  all  the  world  is  of  just  one  even  color. 
However  men  may  differ  in  feature  or  in  habits, 
the  blood  in  their  veins  is  always  of  the  same 
tint,  and  this  sign  of  the  universal  bond  the  Revo- 
lutionists had  long  ago  chosen  as  the  expression 
of  their  world-wide  hope. 

And  in  spite  of  the  prejudice  against  it,  I  think 
not  many  Americans  could  have  seen  it  in  some 
of  the  places  where  it  was  flying  without  a  sense 
of  exaltation  and  an  impulse  to  give  thanks.  Be- 
cause, among  the  places  in  Petrograd  where  it 
was  conspicuous  was  the  great  Winter  Palace, 
once  the  largest,  most  imposing,  most  gorgeous 
and  most  costly  royal  residence  in  Europe.  For 
almost  two  centuries  there  had  flown  from  that 
flagstaff  nothing  but  imperial  ensigns  that  meant 
hatred,  slavery,  the  iron  fist  and  the  rule  it  im- 
posed upon  subjugated  millions.  Thank  God  for 
the  change! 

Moreover,  there  were  recent  and  poignant 
reasons  for  rejoicing.    Those  windows  under  the 

51 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

red  flag  of  the  new  democracy  had  looked  down 
upon  Bloody  Monday.    In  the  square  upon  which 
the    palace    faces    that    sickening    tragedy    was 
played.      They    came    there    from    all   parts    of 
Petrograd  that  morning,  two  hundred  thousand 
men,  women  and  children,  starving,  and  fell  on 
their  knees  in  the  snow  and  lifted  up  their  hands 
and  prayed  to  the  Czar,  comfortable  in  that  palace, 
for  bread.    The  world  ought  not  to  forget  the  an- 
swer to  their  prayer.    On  the  roofs  of  the  great 
red  palace,  on  the  roofs  of  the  War  Building 
across  the  square,  in  the  clump  of  trees  on  the 
south  the  machine  guns  were  posted.    And  thence 
at  a  signal  they  began  playing  into   the   solid 
masses  of  people,  playing  streams  of  bullets  as 
with  a  length  of  hose  one  might  play  water.    And 
five  thousand  men,  women  and  children  fell  dead 
where  they  were  and  thousands  of  others  were 
wounded,  so  that  the  whole  square  was  blotched 
and  slopped  with  blood  when  all  was  over,  and 
even  the  Czar  looking  from  his  windows  the  next 
day  was  nauseated  at  the  sight.     And  now  the 
imperial  ensign  of  force,  wrong  and  murder  that 
waved  over  the  scene  was  gone  forever  and  in  its 
place  was  a  flag  that  had  been  raised  for  the  sake 
of  an  idea  or  dream  of  universal  brotherhood  and 

52 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

good  will.  It  would  be  a  strange  order  of  mind 
that  would  not  rejoice  at  the  change! 

At  least  to  those  that  loved  freedom,  every 
symbol  of  it  seemed  good.  In  the  old  days  of 
hatred  and  wrong  troops  used  often  to  march 
through  that  square  headed  by  a  regimental  band 
playing  a  hyinn  the  refrain  of  which  was  "God 
Save  the  Czar. ' '  And  now  the  same  band  marched 
through  the  same  square  playing  the  new  national 
anthem.  And  what  was  that?  Merely  the  "Mar- 
sellaise,"  once  proscribed  in  Russia  and  now  be- 
oome  the  universal  melody. 

On  Sunday,  July  1,  300,000  people  paraded  in 
the  square  with  band  after  band  that  played  noth- 
ing else ;  all  day  the  strains  of  that  revolutionary 
anthem  echoed  through  the  suites  where  Czars 
used  to  sit  and  condemn  to  the  living  death  of  Si- 
beria men  that  had  said  a  few  words  in  favor  of 
human  liberty.  Three  hundred  thousand  free  men 
and  women  tramped  to  that  tune  over  the  stones 
that  in  1905  had  been  drenched  in  the  people's 
blood.  Much  was  being  made  at  that  time  of  the 
excesses  of  the  new  democratic  rule;  much  has 
been  made  of  them  ever  since.  I  think  that  upon 
reflection  it  will  be  found  that  the  simple  fact  of 
that  one  day's  procession  and  the  comparisons  it 

53 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

enforced  outweighed  all  the  excesses  of  the  Revo- 
lution, imaginary  and  real. 

For  if  there  was  here  a  new  experiment  in  gov- 
ernment to  make  the  timorous  uneasy  no  one  could 
deny  that  it  was  democracy's  unescapable  logic. 
After  all,  these  people  had  no  more  than  accepted 
democracy  at  par  value.  What  they  understood 
by  democracy  was  direct  government  by  the  peo- 
ple, the  great  majority  of  whom  were  the  toilers 
on  the  farms  and  in  the  factories;  no  "checks  and 
balances,"  no  artificial  barriers  to  defeat  the 
popular  will  and  ensure  government  by  property ; 
exact  political  equality  for  all,  universal  suffrage, 
women  at  last  freed  from  the  surviving  disabilities 
of  the  jungle,  men  freed  from  the  political  relics  of 
feudalism.  At  one  leap  democracy  had  gone  far 
beyond  all  its  previous  achievements.  A  new  coun- 
try had  been  launched  with  new  ideals  and  new 
purposes  and  the  world  must  rub  its  eyes  and 
awake  to  the  new  birth. 

It  will  always,  I  suppose,  be  an  open  question 
whether  pure  snobbery  was  not  the  chief  factor  in 
the  unreadiness  many  of  us  showed  to  recognize 
the  essentials  of  the  new  order  in  Russia.  The 
subtle  and  deadly  influence  of  Germany  and  the 
lack    of    any    organized    effort    to    combat    her 

54 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

methods,  achieved  the  defeat  of  the  first  Russian 
Republic,  but  certainly  it  was  no  prevision  of  any 
such  fate  that  misled  us  into  the  strange  notion 
so  common  at  that  time  that  we  had  some  divine 
call  to  teach  democracy  to  those  well-meaning  but 
deluded  creatures. 

I  may  say  with  confidence  that  no  one  that 
visited  the  Cadetsky  Corpus  in  the  days  when  the 
National  Council  met  there  entertained  any  such 
thought.  Sitting  in  that  famous  place  nothing 
could  well  seem  more  absurd  than  the  suggestion 
of  instructing  in  democracy  persons  that  went  so 
surely  and  swiftly  to  its  actual  practice. 

The  Cadetsky  Corpus  was  the  old  name  of  the 
West  Point  of  Russia,  the  training  school  for  army 
officers.  It  covers  an  astonishingly  great  area  on 
the  side  of  the  Neva  opposite  to  the  Winter  Palace 
beyond  which  lies  the  business  center  of  Petro- 
grad.  There  is  a  large  number  of  white  stone 
buildings,  none  of  more  than  two  stories,  and  much 
campus  between.  It  was  in  the  great  hall  of  this 
school,  a  place  of  mark  in  Russian  history,  that 
the  National  Council  of  Workmen's,  Soldiers'  and 
Peasants'  Deputies  held  its  sessions,  and  as  this 
body,  being  elected,  must  have  been  a  fair  expres- 

55 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

sion  of  the  will  and  mind  of  the  Russian  people  it 
was  and  is  surely  worth  study. 

The  whole  country  had  been  divided  into  dis- 
tricts on  the  basis  of  the  population,  so  many 
people  to  a  district.  Each  district  had  chosen  one 
deputy,  all  adult  men  and  women  (except  luna- 
tics and  criminals)  being  endowed  with  the  fran- 
chise. Consequently,  there  was  not  in  the  world 
a  more  truly  representative  body  nor  one  with  a 
mandate  better  based  upon  the  orthodoxies  of  de- 
mocracy. 

The  principal  entrance  was  upon  a  side  street 
leading  away  from  the  river.  It  was  wholly  un- 
pretending and  the  only  indicators  of  the  present 
occupation  of  the  building  were  the  crowd  that 
hung  about,  and  a  small  sign  in  red  on  white  cloth 
displayed  on  the  wooden  steps.  The  crowd,  I  re- 
member noticing,  was  composed  only  of  working 
people.  Workers  likewise  were  the  soldiers  out- 
side and  in,  and  all  of  them  privates.  I  never  saw 
in  the  building,  I  think,  any  soldier  higher  than 
a  corporal  except  one  deputy  that  was  a  captain. 
But  he  was  likewise  a  peasant  and  his  rank  was 
of  revolutionary  origin,  so  that  he  was  no  true 
exception.  Entrance  was  by  ticket,  but  tickets 
were  very  easily  obtained,  and  the  part  of  the 

56 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

hall  sot  apart  for  the  public  was  invariably 
crowded  no  matter  at  what  hour  the  sitting  might 
be.  At  the  top  of  a  short  flight  of  steps  from  the 
street  I  turned  to  the  right  and  traversed  two  very 
long,  bare  corridors,  where  at  intervals  appeared 
a  citizen  soldier  on  guard  with  his  bayonet  on  his 
rifle,  the  Russian  custom.  On  one  side  of  these 
corridors  was  the  drill  ground  and  parade  ground 
of  the  cadets  and  on  the  other,  through  windows 
in  the  wall,  I  saw  a  great  apartment  filled  with 
iron  cot  beds.  I  asked  what  these  were  for  and 
was  told  they  were  the  beds  of  the  delegates.  To 
save  time  as  well  as  money  they  had  requisitioned 
the  cots  of  the  cadets  and  camped  on  the  spot.  In 
the  adjoining  building  I  was  shown  a  cellar,  equal- 
ly great,  filled  with  the  crudest  of  wooden  tables 
and  wooden  benches.  This  was  the  dining  room 
of  the  delegates.  They  saved  time  and  saved 
money  likewise  by  getting  their  meals  on  the  spot. 
The  repasts,  I  can  testify,  were  of  the  most  primi- 
tive character — sausage,  black  bread  and  tea. 

The  Council  was  an  industrious  body;  it  fre- 
quently began  its  sessions  at  11  o'clock  of  one 
morning  and  did  not  adjourn  until  3  o'clock  of 
the  next.    It  had  assembled  strictly  to  do  business 

57 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

and  the  deputies  found  little  time  for  anything 
else. 

The  great  hall  of  the  cadets,  in  which  the  ses- 
sions were  held,  occupied  an  upper  floor  of  the 
building  in  which  I  had  found  the  refectory.  It 
struck  me  as  remarkable  that  the  lower  hall  and 
to  a  considerable  extent  the  stairways  were  filled 
with  bookstalls  where  young  women  were  busily 
engaged  in  selling  literature,  and  still  more  re- 
markable that  all  of  the  literature  they  sold  was  of 
an  advanced  order  of  economic  or  sociological 
philosophy.  I  took  pains  to  examine  the  wares 
offered  and  found  nothing  more  ephemeral  than 
Kautsky  and  Lassalle.  There  were  eighteen  stalls 
at  which  these  mental  stimulants  could  be  had  and 
I  am  obliged  to  say  that  all  seemed  to  be  doing  a 
good  business. 

The  Cadets'  hall  was  not  well  adapted  to  the 
purposes  of  an  assembly,  being  of  such  extraor- 
dinary length  that  persons  at  the  rear  could  with 
difficulty  make  out  even  what  was  shouted  at  the 
other  end  and  seemed  to  be  looking  down  a  vista 
of  oppressive  length  upon  human  puppets  on  a 
remote  stage  at  the  other  end.  Once  these  walls 
were  adorned  with  the  portraits  of  dead  Czars  and 
the  flags  of  Imperial  Russia.    All  were  vanished 

58 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

now;  ripped  down  with  joyous  acclaim  on  the  day 
of  the  Revolution.  In  their  place  appeared  every- 
where the  red  flag  as  the  only  decoration ;  except 
on  the  wall  at  the  entrance  end,  where  one  could 
read  this  startling  motto,  done  in  white  upon  red 
banners : 

"Workers  of  the  World,  Unite!  You  Have 
Nothing  to  Lose  but  Your  Chains!" 

Many  a  time  in  America  we  have  heard  this  call 
proclaimed  from  the  disregarded  soap  box  or  have 
read  it  carelessly  in  the  literature  of  agitation. 
Few  of  us  expected  to  meet  it  emblazoned  on  th£ 
walls  of  a  national  legislative  assembly  that  was 
very  likely  determining  the  fate  of  the  world. 
Karl  Marx  would  seem  to  have  been  vindicated 
at  last. 

The  rear  one-third  of  the  hall  was  reserved  for 
the  public.  Delegates  occupied  the  rest,  seated  at 
the  transported  old  desks  of  the  recent  cadets. 
On  the  high  red-flagged  platform  at  the  extreme 
end  sat  the  guests  of  the  Council  and  its  officers, 
including  that  redoubtable  Tschaidse,  the  chair- 
man, of  whom  the  world  was  to  hear  farther.  At 
his  left  was  the  rostrum,  a  plain  reading-desk  for 
the  speakers. 

To  sit  up  there  and  look  out  upon  that  historic 

59 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

gathering  was  to  see  the  whole  Russian  situation 
plotted  like  a  map  in  the  clearest  colors  before  you. 
It  was  also  to  gain  a  new  and  peculiar  sense  of  the 
power  that  lies  in  the  mere  mentality  of  de- 
termined men.  There  they  sat,  representing  all 
of  the  organized  force  of  Russia,  holding  its  des- 
tiny absolutely  in  their  hands.  At  their  will  min- 
istries resigned,  administrations  rose  or  fell, 
armies  advanced  or  retreated,  the  future  state  of 
millions  was  determined.  And  but  five  months 
back  and  not  one  of  these  men  had  so  much  as 
dreamed  that  he  should  see  Russia  free.  Then 
most  of  them  were  bowed  patiently  and  hopelessly 
under  an  autocratic  and  medieval  government 
that  they  hated ;  many  were  in  exile  because  they 
had  dared  to  oppose  that  government  and  never 
expected  again  to  be  free.  And  now,  they  sat 
there  and  moved  their  ruler  about  the  country 
like  a  poor  little  pawn  on  a  chess  board  and  cut 
up  his  property  for  the  benefit  of  the  nation. 

I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  this  was  the  most  ex- 
traordinary legislative  body  that  had  ever  met 
anywhere  in  this  world.  It  surpassed  even  the  Na- 
tional Assembly  of  Revolutionary  France,  for  that 
was  after  all  a  middle-class  affair;  advocates  like 
Robespierre,  journalists  like  Desmoulins.    If  we 

60 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

come  to  democratic  assemblies  of  later  days, 
American  Congresses  and  legislatures  are  all 
lawyers;  British  are  chiefly  land-owners  and  the 
sacred  white  fatted  calves  of  the  ancient  families. 
But  this  national  legislature  of  Russia,  as  I  have 
before  pointed  out,  was  composed  of  persons  that 
worked  with  their  hands  or  those  so  closely  allied 
with  labor  that  their  essential  interests  were  with 
the  workers.  It  might  consistently  have  adver 
tised,  "No  lawyers  need  apply."  Also,  no  business 
men,  employers,  captains  of  industry  or  members 
of  the  better  classes,  for  none  of  these  had  great 
representation  in  its  membership.  If  then,  as  the 
world  has  generally  believed,  only  the  legal  mind 
or  the  scholastic  mind  is  truly  fitted  to  conduct 
a  legislature,  the  attempt  of  these  new  and  incon- 
gruous elements  to  make  laws  and  transact  busi- 
ness should  have  been  not  much  better  than  lu- 
dicrous. 

Many  persons  in  America,  when  they  heard  of 
the  rise  and  functions  of  the  National  Council, 
speculated  much  about  the  Duma,  which  had  gen- 
erally been  accepted  as  the  real  Russian  parlia- 
ment and  was  fairly  well  known  to  be  composed 
of  safe,  sane  and  conspicuous  citizens.  It  was 
hard  to  surrender  this  famous  body,  wrung  from 

61 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

the  slow  hand  of  the  Czar  and  hailed  everywhere 
as  marking  the  dawn  of  representative  govern- 
ment in  Russia ;  yet  the  fact  was  that  the  Duma 
was  no  more.  Pride  of  the  American  press  and 
hope  of  conservatives  generally,  it  breathed  its 
last  even  while  I  was  in  Petrograd  and  I  was 
privileged  to  attend  the  obsequies.  They  were 
characteristically  and  beautifully  Russian.  The 
Duma  had  been  a  body  chosen  by  the  landowners 
and  a  few  other  fortunate  persons.  It  never  repre- 
sented Russia;  it  had  no  relations  to  the  Russian 
people.  It  was,  of  course,  in  an  autocracy  better 
than  nothing,  for  while  only  a  few  had  the  right 
to  vote  for  it,  still  it  was  voted  for.  But  when 
the  Revolution  came  and  swept  away  the  entire 
machinery  of  antique  absolutism  there  was  no 
longer  any  excuse  for  a  Duma.  All  the  people,  in 
free  election,  were  now  choosing  their  own  legis- 
lative body.  Still  the  Duma  continued  to  meet 
and  debate,  as  if  it  had  yet  a  function,  or  pos- 
sibly from  force  of  habit,  history  does  not  tell 
us  which.  One  day  in  the  National  Council  the 
question  came  up  whether  this  relic  of  a  bygone 
age  had  not  better  be  abolished  since  it  was  no 
longer  of  the  slightest  use  to  anyone;  but  to  my 
surprise  the  proposal  met  with  bitter  opposition. 

62 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

"This  is  a  free  country,' '  delegates  argued. 
"Any  assembly  ought  to  be  allowed  to  meet  as 
much  as  it  pleases  and  discuss  anything  that  suits 
its  fancy.  But  since  the  Duma  is  no  longer  the 
national  legislature  we  are  in  favor  of  cutting  off 
all  its  salaries  and  all  its  expense  list."  Which  is 
exactly  what  was  done — with  the  utmost  gravity. 
Whereupon  they  bore  out  the  corpse  of  the  Duma 
and  buried  it.  If  the  Russians  are  shy  of  a  sense 
of  humor  anywhere  it  is  in  regard  to  their  public 
affairs. 

It  was  common  for  first  time  visitors  to  the 
Council  to  be  much  impressed  with  the  large  num- 
ber of  soldiers'  uniforms  in  the  delegates'  seats, 
the  seemly,  well-fitting  olive  green  tunic  that 
makes  a  British  army  coat  look  like  something  cut 
out  with  an  ax;  the  belt,  the  high  black  boots; 
even  in  the  breathless  hot  days  of  July,  the  high 
black  boots.  Seeing  the  overplus  of  these  uni- 
forms visitors  usually  swept  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  Council  was  a  military  body.  This  was 
an  error.  Military  service  in  Russia  was  univer- 
sal and  compulsory.  The  uniformed  men  were 
not  only  soldiers;  they  were  farmers,  factory 
workers,  day-laborers,  carpenters,  stonemasons, 
who  had  been  called  to  the  colors  and  were  wear- 

63 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

ing  the  uniform  of  the  service  when  they  were 
elected  to  the  Council  as  workers  and  by  workers. 
Few  foreigners  in  Petrograd  had  any  knowl- 
edge of  the  Council  or  paid  attention  to  it,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  it  alone  had  real  power 
in  Russia.  Aside  from  four  of  the  newspaper  cor- 
respondents I  could  not  find  a  foreigner  that  had 
ever  been  inside  the  hall.  There  was  a  strange 
mistake  common  among  them  that  the  Council 
represented  only  Petrograd  and  vicinity.  This 
blunder,  which  was  inexcusable,  arose  from  the 
fact  that  there  were  two  entirely  distinct  bodies 
having  somewhat  similar  names,  the  National 
Council  of  Workmen's,  Soldiers'  and  Peasants' 
Deputies  and  the  Petrograd  Council  of  Soldiers' 
and  Workmen's  Deputies.  The  Petrograd  Coun- 
cil consisted  of  about  two  thousand  members  cre- 
ated at  the  time  of  the  Eevolution  by  the  Petro- 
grad garrison  to  look  after  the  soldiers'  interests. 
It  was  without  mandate  from  the  people  or  power 
over  any  public  affairs,  but  it  was  continually 
confused  with  the  National  Council.  As  the 
Petrograd  Council  used  to  amuse  itself  daily  by 
passing  some  such  resolutions  as  that  there  should 
be  no  more  private  property  in  anything  or  that 
sunflower  seeds  should  be  free  to  all  soldiers,  this 

64 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

confusion  did  a  great  deal  of  mischief.  The  Ger- 
man propaganda,  of  course,  seized  upon  it  in- 
stantly and  used  to  deluge  the  American  press 
with  news  of  the  apparently  insane  transactions 
of  the  "Workmen's  and  Soldiers'  Council,"  al- 
ways creating  the  impression  that  this  referred 
to  the  Soviet  and  was  of  some  national  signifi- 
cance. Whereas  in  fact  it  had  somewhat  less  rela- 
tion to  the  national  action  of  Russia  than  resolu- 
tions by  the  New  York  Board  of  Aldermen  would 
have  to  the  national  action  of  the  United  States. 
Long  after  the  National  Council  had  adjourned 
this  adroit  malpractice  continued.  I  have  no 
doubt  it  contributed  materially  to  the  American 
misunderstanding  of  the  Russian  problem. 

So  far  from  the  National  Council  being  in  any 
way  a  local  body,  it  represented  every  part  of 
Russia,  even  far-away  Asiatic  Russia.  Only  thirty 
of  the  830  delegates  came  from  the  Petrograd  dis- 
trict. Among  the  rest  were  fishermen  from  the 
Lena  River,  swarthy  cattle-men  from  the  Crimea, 
and  everything  between. 

Five  of  the  delegates  were  women.  I  have  often 
wondered  why  the  triumph  of  universal  suffrage 
in  Russia  received  so  little  attention  elsewhere. 
The  world  seems  to  have  elected  to  dwell  forever 

65 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

on  the  natural  confusion  that  attended  the  over- 
throw of  the  old  system  and  to  ignore  the  evi- 
dences of  an  enlightened  and  progressive  spirit 
that  were  really  far  more  important  than  all  the 
petty  disorders.  So  far  as  we  in  America  were 
concerned,  certainly,  the  fact  seemed  to  cast  some 
doubt  upon  the  sincerity  of  some  of  our  demo- 
cratic inclinings. 

The  moment  the  wormy  structure  of  imperialism 
fell  there  was  but  one  thought  in  the  mind  of 
everybody,  and  that  was  universal  adult  suffrage. 
Nobody  opposed  it ;  everybody  was  for  it — instinc- 
tively. There  may  have  been  reactionaries  in 
Russia  that  were  impressed  with  the  arguments 
against  woman  suffrage  so  common  in  this  coun- 
try, but  I  never  heard  of  them.  I  never  heard  any 
Russian  say  that  woman's  place  was  the  home  and 
her  interest  the  wash  tub.  I  never  heard  one  of 
them  complain  about  the  degrading  influence  of 
the  ballot  or  speak  with  bated  breath  of  the  terrors 
of  the  ignorant  vote.  Faith  in  these  discoveries 
seems  now  to  be  limited  to  our  own  land  of  the 
free. 

In  some  other  respects,  also,  our  record  when 
compared  with  that  of  the  lowly  Russians  seems 
not  quite  all  that  we  might  desire.     After  fifty 

66 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

years  of  ceaseless  campaigning  we  won  in  Amer- 
ica full  suffrage  for  women  in  nine  States  and 
part  suffrage  for  women  in  three  or  four  others. 
After  sixty  years  of  argument  and  five  years 
of  what  was  really  civil  war,  the  English  suf- 
fragists won  to  a  part  of  the  justice  they  demand- 
ed. In  Russia,  suffrage  for  women  was  achieved 
in  a  moment  and  without  discussion.  It  was 
taken  as  a  matter  of  course.  To  the  Rus- 
sian mind  democracy  meant  democracy;  it  did 
not  mean  an  unjust  arrangement  under  which 
one-half  of  the  population  was  denied  any  share 
in  the  government  that  governed  them. 

I  should  think  that  contemplation  of  these  facts 
by  self-righteous  British  and  American  critics 
might  tend  to  jar  somewhat  the  belief  in  a  su- 
pernal call  to  teach  democracy  to  Russia.  Also, 
they  might  be  thought  to  counterbalance  to  some 
extent  a  failure  to  keep  a  treaty  that  the  Russian 
people  never  made  and  never  recognized. 

The  truth  is  that  democracy  in  Russia  was 
neither  a  dream  nor  a  jest  but  to  all  reflective 
Russians  a  thing  of  the  utmost  seriousness.  In 
the  many  years  they  had  struggled  for  it  without 
the  least  assurance  that  they  should  ever  see  it, 
they  had  learned  to  look  upon  it  with  a  respect 

67 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

probably  impossible  to  people  that  come  by  it 
through  the  easy  route  of  inheritance.  Despotism 
had  taught  them  the  value  of  freedom,  and  being 
now  free  they  seemed  resolved  to  have  democracy 
in  all  their  affairs  and  to  keep  it. 

One  day  while  I  was  in  Petrograd  the  Yacht 
Club  received  applications  for  membership  from 
two  women.  I  hardly  have  need  to  say  that  in  the 
old  days  such  a  thing,  if  conceivable  at  all,  would 
have  caused  strong  hearts  to  faint  and  police  spies 
to  discover  new  candidates  for  Siberia's  cold 
wilds.  But  now  the  point  was  raised  at  once  that 
since  the  Revolution  men  and  women  in  Russia 
were  upon  a  level  of  exact  equality,  and  that  auto- 
matically women  had  become  eligible  for  any  or- 
ganization that  admitted  men.  The  point  was  held 
to  be  well  and  truly  taken  and  the  women  were 
voted  in. 

There  is  in  America  general  conviction  that  the 
people  of  Russia  are  totally  inexperienced  in  the 
practice  of  democracy  and  of  course  must  there- 
fore fail  in  their  first  use  of  it.  A  few  days  after 
the  Yacht  Club  incident  Petrograd  afforded  the 
judicious  an  unequaled  chance  to  see  whether  this 
notion  had  any  substance.  There  was  an  election 
for  a  new  City  Council.    As  in  the  elections  for 

68 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

the  National  Council  the  suffrage  was  universal; 
about  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  used  the 
ballot  box  for  only  the  second  time  in  their 
lives.  I  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  the  func- 
tion closely.  It  moved  like  clock-work ;  one  would 
have  thought  these  people  had  been  voting  all 
their  lives.  There  was  a  registration  list,  a 
committee  composed  of  soldiers,  workingmen  and 
householders  to  manage  the  polling-places  and 
scrutinize  the  voter's  right;  there  was  no  disorder, 
no  confusion,  no  discoverable  chance  for  fraud. 
Some  things  were  done  better  than  we  ever  did 
them.  The  polling-place  was  invariably  some  pub- 
lic building;  no  basement  poolroom  or  pickle-shop. 
Frequently  it  was  on  the  ground  floor  of  a  former 
Grand  Duke's  palace,  put  at  last  to  a  reasonable 
use.  There  was  no  electioneering,  there  was  no 
orowd  of  Red  Leary's  Toughs.  "Women  went  in 
and  voted  with  ease,  dignity,  and,  methought,  a 
quiet  but  ineffable  satisfaction.  Seven  different 
tickets  were  in  the  field.  Each  voter  was  provided 
at  his  house  with  a  copy  of  each  ticket,  duly  certi- 
fied. The  end  of  the  ticket  was  perforated.  At 
the  ballot-box  the  voter  was  checked  upon  the 
registry  list,  the  perforated  end  of  his  folded  ticket 

69 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

was  torn  off,  officially  stamped  and  spiked,  and  he 
put  the  rest  into  the  box. 

There  were  cast  in  the  city  722,000  votes;  total 
population  a  little  more  than  2,200,000.  Of  the 
722,000  all  but  about  140,000  were  cast  for  the 
candidates  of  parties  that  proposed  the  most 
sweeping  changes  in  the  whole  social  structure  and 
the  downfall  of  the  last  remaining  castle  of  the  old 
order.  The  bourgeoisie  had  practically  disap- 
peared. 

Similarly  the  proletarian  flavor  of  everything 
about  the  National  Council  was  unmistakable.  Not 
only  were  its  members  workingmen  and  working- 
women  but  so  were  its  spectators.  As  a  rule 
there  were  not  more  than  six  other  persons  in  the 
hall  besides  myself  that  wore  linen  shirts  and  white 
collars  and  these  six  were  among  the  correspon- 
dents and  reporters  that  occupied  the  space  on  the 
floor  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  raised  platform. 
To  look  over  the  vast  assembly  of  serious,  intent 
faces  that  crowded  the  long  room,  row  after  row 
to  the  exit  at  the  rear,  was,  I  believe,  to  see  the 
real  Russia,  and  I  never  found  any  other  one  spot 
that  equaled  it  for  compendious  observation.  I 
have  in  my  time  known  thousands  of  audiences  but 
audiences  of  this  kind  were  new  to  me.     There 

70 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

they  sat  hour  after  hour,  drinking  in  every  word 
that  fell  from  any  speaker,  silent  lest  they  should 
lose  a  syllable.  Those  at  a  distance  made  ear- 
trumpets  of  rolled-up  newspapers;  they  were  in- 
tolerant of  the  least  movement  or  noise  that  caused 
them  to  lose  any  precious  crumb  of  the  proceed- 
ings. It  was  as  I  told  you  in  the  foregoing  chapter 
— here  was  the  proletariat  of  Russia,  hands  upon 
the  levers.  No  man  could  despise  them  now ;  with  a 
breath  they  blew  ministers  in  or  out.  In  the  hall, 
where  long  lines  of  gorgeous  dead  Czars  used  to 
look  down  from  the  walls,  and  gorgeous  living 
Czars  used  to  watch  the  military  training  of 
gracious  youths  of  the  governing  class,  and  all 
things  seemed  comfortably  settled  forever,  plow- 
men and  teamsters  sat  to  debate  whether  Nicholas 
Romanoff,  late  of  the  Gorgeous  Ones,  now  a  pris- 
oner of  state,  should  be  allowed  to  vote  like  other 
plain,  common  citizens.  Wonderful  was  the 
change,  brethren!  Few,  I  think,  that  deliberated 
upon  it  were  ready  to  believe  that  a  people  so 
started  upon  the  self-governing  road  could  for 
any  long  time  be  tricked  away  from  it. 

On  the  floor  the  delegates  were  ranged  from  left 
to  right  according  to  their  politics ;  which  means, 
according  to  the  intensity  of  their  revolutionary 

71 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

fervor.  This  arrangement,  of  mysterious  origin, 
is  common  in  continental  legislatures.  The  Left 
means  men  of  radical  conviction  and  the  farther 
to  the  left  you  go  the  more  radical  they  become. 
In  the  Russian  National  Council  the  man  that  sat 
next  to  the  window  on  that  side  was  so  hot  a  radi- 
cal he  seemed  to  be  about  to  break  out  into  flames. 
From  his  tropic  neighborhood  moving  to  the  Right 
the  temperature  steadily  diminished.  In  the  Cen- 
ter sat  the  men  who  while  devoted  to  the  radical 
cause  were  not  beyond  the  habit  of  reasoning 
about  it.  Next  to  them  on  the  Right  began  the 
men  reckoned  as  conservatives.  After  a  time  it 
struck  me  as  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  most  ex- 
treme conservative  on  the  Right,  a  man,  let  us 
say,  that  by  most  of  his  colleagues  was  regarded 
with  suspicion  and  as  not  quite  fit  to  go  down  to 
drink  tea  with,  was  a  man  that  in  the  United  States 
before  the  war  would  have  been  looked  upon  as  a 
dangerous  and  incendiary  character  and  one  that 
the  reactionary  press  would  have  blacklisted  with 
joy. 

The  Left  in  the  National  Council  believed  that 
the  Revolution  had  hardly  begun  and  that  before 
it  should  end  every  existing  landmark  of  a  social 
system  they  abhorred  would  be  swept  from  sight. 

72 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

The  Right  believed  that  the  Revolution  was  a 
splendid  and  worthy  thing  but  its  work  was  done 
and  Russia  should  now  think  only  of  building  a 
new  structure  on  the  ruins  of  the  old.  Between 
the  extreme  Left  and  the  extreme  Right  was  the 
real  driving  force  of  the  Council,  the  men  that 
wanted  the  Revolution  to  sweep  on  and  do  many 
more  things  that  ought  to  be  done,  but  were  unwill- 
ing to  see  it  misuse  and  lose  what  it  had  already 
gained. 

Left  and  Right,  perhaps  I  should  explain  to 
those  unfamiliar  with  European  assemblies,  mean 
looking  from  the  platform;  it  is  the  chairman's 
left  or  right. 

The  group  on  the  extreme  Left  in  my  time  was 
composed  of  the  famous  Bolshevics  with  Lenine 
as  their  leader.  Much  as  I  saw  and  heard  of  him, 
I  was  never  able  to  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  con- 
clusion about  him  except  as  to  his  extraordinary 
ability.  Any  desired  shade  of  opinion  of  him 
could  be  had,  ranging  from  hero  and  martyr  to 
devil,  but  none  seemed  on  investigation  to  have 
any  sure  basis.  I  once  had  in  my  possession 
copies  of  the  documents  that  seemed  to  prove  he 
was  in  the  employ  of  Germany,  the  same  docu- 
ments with  which  a  newspaper  of  Paris  after- 

73 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

ward  sought  to  drive  him  from  public  life,  and 
as  these  were  stolen  from  me  by  the  German  spy 
that  broke  open  my  trunk  on  my  way  home  I  can 
only  suppose  that  by  the  Germans  at  least  they 
were  regarded  as  important.  On  the  other  hand 
many  of  Lenine's  bitterest  opponents  in  Russia, 
with  these  documents  before  them,  declared  that 
the  man  was  absolutely  honest,  however  mistaken, 
and  the  papers  that  seemed  to  implicate  him  were 
forgeries  and  slanders.  Indeed,  it  ought  to  be 
remarked  that  they  never  have  been  validated  and 
for  the  most  part  would  be  inadmissible  evidence 
in  a  court  of  law. 

One  thing  about  the  man  that  could  not  be  de- 
nied was  his  extraordinary  magnetic  power  over 
a  certain  order  of  mind;  if  he  had  been  able  to 
make  in  the  same  way  a  larger  appeal,  or  had 
appeared  at  a  different  epoch,  there  is  no  telling 
where  his  power  might  have  stopped.  Among  his 
followers  was  a  certain  small  group  that  looked 
upon  him  with  almost  superstitious  reverence. 
With  sincerity  they  regarded  him  as  a  superman 
sent  to  lead  the  world  from  its  war  bondage,  and 
no  evidence  against  him,  no  matter  how  sup- 
ported, would  have  had  weight  with  these.  Yet 
there  was  always  to  my  mind  something  elusive 

74 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

about  him;  even  in  his  oratory  he  had  never  the 
fine,  frank,  outspoken  fervor  of  Tseratelli  or  Ker- 
ensky,  but  neither  Tseratelli  nor  Kerensky  had 
such  a  devoted  following. 

There  was  never  anything  elusive  about  Trot- 
sky. He  was  an  open  book  and  one  to  most  minds 
extremely  attractive.  I  have  never  seen  a  better 
type  of  the  fanatic;  he  believed  without  the  least 
question  that  the  Bolshevic  theory  was  about  to 
triumph  in  the  world  to  the  world's  salvation.  He 
had  warm  and  splendid  visions  of  the  whole  hu- 
man race  united  in  bonds  of  enduring  friendship, 
while  the  working  class  in  each  country  conducted 
what  little  government  should  be  necessary.  His 
mental  engine  seemed  never  at  rest  but  toiled  even 
when  it  traveled  but  in  circles ;  he  was  generous, 
kindly,  believed  he  hated  all  capitalists  and  capi- 
talistic governments  and  could  no  more  see  a  sec- 
ond move  after  he  had  conceived  a  first  than  he 
could  fly  to  Mars. 

The  Bolshevics  were  not  numerically  strong  in 
the  Council,  but  made  an  unreasonable  noise  for 
their  numbers.  On  one  of  their  test  proposals, 
while  I  was  there,  they  secured  144  votes,  but  tlr 
regular  strength  was  estimated  at  119.  They  were 
not  at  that  time  a  political  party  but  merely  a 

75 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

faction  of  a  party.  Parties  in  Russia  had  a  more 
formal  organization  and  method  than  anything 
we  are  familiar  with  and  were  as  the  sands  of 
the  sea  for  number.  I  could  never  pretend  to 
fathom  all  the  differences  among  them  and  never 
met  anyone  else  that  could.  Doubtless  there  were 
such  persons  but  they  must  have  been  of  an  abun- 
dant leisure.  I  knew  that  in  most  cases  the  dif- 
ferences were  very  slight:  beyond  that,  the  waters 
of  knowledge  began  to  shoal  rapidly  for  me. 
Among  the  important  parties  there  was  first  the 
Social  Democratic,  then  the  Social  Revolutionist, 
then  the  People's  Socialist,  then  the  People's  Lib- 
erty, then  the  Cadet  or  Constitutional  Democratic 
Party,  and  then  the  others.  The  two  great  parties 
of  the  country  were  the  Social  Democratic  and  the 
Social  Revolutionist.  So  far  as  the  finite  mind 
could  learn  they  had  practically  identical  creeds. 
I  was  never  enlightened  as  to  what  they  had  to 
fight  about,  but  anyway  it  was  of  no  importance, 
for  the  real  fight  was  not  between  but  within  them, 
after  this  fashion: 

The  Social  Democratic  Party  was  split  be- 
tween its  Bolshevics  and  its  Menshevics.  The 
Social  Revolutionist  Party  was  split  between  its 
Maximalists    and   Minimalists.     Bolshevics   and 

76 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

Maximalists  were  the  same ;  Menshevics  and  Mini- 
malists were  the  same.  The  quarrel  was  between 
the  Bolshevics-Maximalists  on  one  side  and  Men- 
shevics-Minimalists  on  the  other,  and  more  than 
once  threatened  to  rend  the  National  Council 
asunder. 

The  substance  of  their  disputes  was  one  of  the 
first  great  facts  in  the  Russian  situation  and  neces- 
sary to  be  well  understood  by  anyone  seeking  the 
keys  to  the  play. 

The  Bolshevics-Maximalists  were  Syndicalists 
and  wanted  the  Government  to  take  over  all  the 
factories,  banks,  land  and  utilities — at  once. 

The  Menshevics-Minimalists  wanted  the  Govern- 
ment to  take  over  all  the  factories,  banks,  land  and 
utilities,  but  not  at  once;  because  they  did  not 
believe  the  time  to  be  propitious.  Practically,  that 
was  all  except  for  the  matter  of  dreams  and 
visions,  previously  spoken  of.  The  Bolshevic- 
Maximalist  group  dwelt  in  an  imaginary  world 
wherein  they  saw  the  present  social  system  rolled 
together  as  a  great  scroll  and  a  new  one  of  vague 
but  gorgeous  construction  let  down  from  heaven 
to  the  sound  of  celestial  minstrelsy,  themselves 
constituting  the  deus  ex  machina.  The  Menshevic- 
Minimalist  group  usually  succeeded  in  keeping 

77 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

their  feet  upon  the  ground  and  their  projections 
out  of  dreamland.  I  may  as  well  concede  that  the 
extreme  Left  of  the  Bolshevic-Maximalist  group 
were  Anarchists,  although  they  would  never  say 
so,  nor  train  with  the  little  Anarchist  element  in 
the  city.  Not  the  clamorous  and  cheap  vaudeville 
type  of  Anarchist  that  perennially  plagued  sober 
men  by  careering  with  mad  yells  and  in  automo- 
biles about  the  city,  but  philosophical  Anarchists, 
I  mean.  Syndicalism  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  a  poor 
relation  of  Anarchism,  anyway,  and  often  to  be 
found  sidling  toward  the  Anarchist  home. 

On  all  the  broad  general  principles  of  Socialism 
and  democracy  Bolshevics-Maximalists  and  Men- 
shevics-Minimalists  were  agreed,  and  together 
they  constituted  about  three-fourths  of  the  Coun- 
cil. You  might  say,  indeed,  that  all  the  Council 
and  all  Russia  were  saturated  with  Socialism  and 
nearly  everybody  was  a  Socialist,  the  only  differ- 
ence being  in  degree  and  in  ideas  as  to  the  prac- 
tical application  of  theories.  That  being  the  case, 
the  notion  that  was  continually  advanced  in  cer- 
tain British  and  American  quarters  of  taking  by 
the  hand  these  simple  children  of  nature  and  lead- 
ing them  kindly  up  to  the  primary  democratic 
principles  of  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Lloyd  George 

78 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

was  to  the  judicious  a  joke  that  never  lost  its 
savor.  Among  these  people  evolution  had  long 
passed  beyond  all  such  primitive  processes  and 
democracy  meant  industrial  democracy  as  much 
as  it  meant  the  right  to  vote,  and  industrial  democ- 
racy meant  the  division  of  the  products  of  indus- 
try among  those  whose  toil  had  created  such  prod- 
ucts. 

In  other  words,  it  meant  the  practical  elimina- 
tion of  dividends  and  interest  and  with  this,  it 
was  hoped,  there  would  be  an  end  of  want  on  one 
side  and  luxury  on  the  other. 

For  some  reason  never  well  explained  it  was 
always  extremely  difficult  to  get  in  America  any 
recognition  of  these  facts. 

But  here  comes  in  a  question  that  seems  to  me 
the  next  great  point  on  which  the  future  of  Russia 
hinges.  How  came  so  much  of  the  mass  of  Russian 
people,  viewed  by  all  the  truly  learned  as  igno- 
rant and  stupid,  to  seize  upon  a  social  philos- 
ophy so  new  to  the  rest  of  the  world  and  so  far 
in  advance  of  it?  Because  these  wise  men  that 
have  so  liberally  condemned  Russia  to  a  state  of 
hopeless  ignorance  have  not  themselves  pro- 
gressed a  foot  outside  of  the  Jeffersonian  realm 
of  thought ;  to  this  day  they  can  see  nothing  but 

79 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

political  democracy.  Yet  the  inferior  Russian, 
booted,  vodka-soaked  and  all  the  rest,  lays  hold 
upon  this  new  conception  of  a  life  without  poverty 
and  without  superfluity,  a  theory  not  simple,  not 
rudimentary,  but  advocated  in  many  dusty  tomes 
by  ponderous  thinkers  practically  unknown  to  our 
superior  world.  Here,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  wonder, 
both  historic  and  suggestive.  That  in  the  old 
poisonous  days  of  darkness  and  autocracy,  when 
the  gag  was  on  every  man's  lip,  the  police-agent 
listening  at  every  man's  door,  the  Government 
watching  every  press,  the  chill  fear  of  Siberia  in 
every  heart,  illiteracy  a  paralyzing  cloud  over  the 
whole  land,  there  should  still  spread  widely  among 
the  people,  by  stealth  and  mostly  by  word  of 
mouth,  such  an  economic  and  social  creed, — I  must 
doubt  if  that  achievement  can  be  equaled,  or  ap- 
proached, in  all  the  histories  of  men.  Such  being 
the  case,  I  come  to  the  greatest  question  of  all: 
Where,  then,  shall  we  draw  the  probable  limit  to 
the  potentialities  of  such  a  people?  I  mean,  if 
they  can  do  these  things  under  the  most  difficult 
and  discouraging  conditions,  what  will  they  not  be 
capable  of  with  peace,  universal  education,  and 
some  part  at  least  of  that  economic  freedom  of 
which  they  have  had  an  alluring  vision?    And  I 

80 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

believe,  dwelling  impartially  upon  the  modern  his- 
tory of  Russia,  that  it  might  have  been  possible 
to  overlook  and  be  tolerant  of  many  features  of 
the  situation  that  for  the  time  being  were  hard 
blows  to  the  western  nations,  for  the  sake  of  the 
unimpaired  capital  of  Russian  character  that  still 
lay  behind. 

Still  it  was  plain  enough  that  their  social  phi- 
losophy and  their  very  devotion  to  it  made  them 
and  their  country  liable  to  defeat  and  destruc- 
tion. Their  dreamy  fantasies  about  universal 
good  will  and  brotherliness  in  a  time  of  war 
opened  the  door  to  the  German  spies,  agents, 
bribe-mongers,  secret  propagandists,  and  the 
crawling  creatures  that  spread  poison  over  the 
Field  of  Mars  every  Sunday  afternoon,  and  the 
world  had  afterward  bitter  reason  to  lament  that 
liberality. 

Second,  it  was,  I  suppose,  inevitable,  that  hav- 
ing these  spacious  dreams  of  social  betterment 
and  the  New  Day  the  most  active  minds  in  Russia 
should  get  but  a  twisted  notion  about  the  war.  It 
was  the  war  that  blocked  their  way  to  a  world 
without  poverty.  Anything,  therefore,  that  would 
end  the  war  would  be  a  blessing,  and  since,  in  the 
new  dispensation,  national  boundaries  are  to  be  of 

81 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

no  consequence,  why  hesitate  to  end  the  war  on  the 
geography  of  July  1,  1918,  or  of  August  1,  1914, 
or  upon  any  other?  And  if  it  were  suggested  to 
them  that  the  surest  and  best  way  to  end  it  was  to 
put  forth  every  effort  to  defeat  Germany,  this 
they  rejected  with  scorn  for  the  reason  that  they 
construed  their  altruistic  creed  to  contain  an  in- 
junction against  all  war  and  because  under  that 
creed,  the  German  workers  were  their  brothers 
and  they  must  not  go  forth  to  fratricide. 

Nothing  could  have  better  suited  the  German 
propaganda. 

These  influences  were  reflected  day  by  day  in 
the  National  Council,  where  the  precious  moments 
went  by  and  the  unopposed  Germans  created  for 
well-meaning  deputies  an  imaginary  America  and 
an  imaginary  road  to  peace.  To  the  Council  itself, 
so  different  from  legislative  bodies  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  experience,  the  facile  Germans  easily  ad- 
justed themselves.  I  was  sometimes  tempted  to 
believe  that  its  wide  difference  from  the  House  of 
Commons  constituted  the  burden  of  its  sin  in  Brit- 
ish eyes;  so  easily  those  that  have  democracy 
come  to  believe  their  way  is  the  only  way  of  hav- 
ing it.  Yet  in  its  stern  application  to  the  work  in 
hand,  its  tireless  industry,  in  its  rapid  and  com- 

82 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

petent  handling  of  public  affairs,  any  observer 
would  have  been  obliged  to  admit  this  legislature 
needed  no  instruction  from  any  other.  Certainly 
there  was  nothing  about  its  proceedings  that 
caused  me  to  regret  the  American  Senate.  It  was, 
by  comparison,  a  very  large  body,  and  the  accepted 
rule  of  human  experience  is  the  larger  the  body 
the  smaller  the  chance  to  transact  business.  Tak- 
ing together  the  voting  and  the  merely  fraternal 
members  there  were  more  than  a  thousand  of 
them.  I  noticed  particularly  that  while  the  pro- 
ceedings were  on  none  of  the  delegates  slept, 
talked,  read  newspapers  nor  moved  wearily  about 
after  the  manner  of  our  Congressmen  and  Sena- 
tors. All  of  the  Russian  legislators  were  in  the 
habit  of  sitting  still  and  attending  strictly  to 
business.  Perhaps  one  reason  for  this  was  that 
the  speeches  were  always  short.  From  all  the  in- 
formation I  could  gain  I  judged  that  they  were 
also  full  of  pith  and  matter;  I  know  that  they 
were  not  allowed  to  wander  from  the  point  under 
discussion;  I  have  too  often  known  them  to  be 
brought  back  sharply  to  their  course  by  Tschaidse, 
the  chairman,  to  be  under  any  misconceptions 
about  that. 

Tschaidse  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  two  most 

83 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

remarkable  men  in  the  Council.  He  was  a 
Georgian  and  spoke  Russian  with  a  marked  ac- 
cent and  not  always  perfectly.  Yet  his  power 
over  the  assembly  was  extraordinary.  He  was  a 
thin,  hawk-faced  man,  with  a  short  clipped,  griz- 
zled beard  concealing  most  of  his  face;  sharp, 
cold  blue  eyes,  an  aquiline  nose,  a  powerful  jaw, 
and  quietly  masterful  manner.  He  was  of  about 
the  average  height  but  always  looked  much  taller 
on  the  platform.  He  usually  wore  an  olive  green 
flannel  tennis  shirt  with  a  rolling  collar  attached. 
"When  he  walked  he  bent  slightly  forward  and 
seemed  to  be  able  to  walk  without  making  any 
noise.  He  seemed  under-vitalized,  for  his  hands 
were  always  cold  and  his  face  bloodless,  but  if 
reports  were  true  of  him  he  could  perform  aston- 
ishing feats  of  endurance.  In  the  weeks  the  Na- 
tional Council  was  in  session  it  was  said  he  hardly 
slept  at  all.  He  would  preside  over  the  Council 
until  it  adjourned,  which  might  be  at  2  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  then  hold  conferences  and  re- 
ceive visitors  until  a  short  time  before  the  hour  of 
reassembling,  when  he  would  disappear  for  a  brief 
rest  and  be  ready  to  go  on  duty  again,  guiding 
for  hours  without  apparent  fatigue  a  body  by  no 
means  easy  to  discipline  or  command. 

84 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

His  success,  however,  was  undeniable  and  often 
wonderful.  He  had  manifestly  a  gift  for  such 
employment;  he  had  been  chairman  of  the  Petro- 
grad  Soldiers'  and  Workmen's  Council  and  had 
steered  that  turbulent  body  through  a  thousand 
storms.  It  seemed  to  me,  watching  him,  that 
much  of  his  success  lay  in  an  instinctive  baro- 
metric sense  of  coming  trouble.  He  presided  not 
with  a  gavel  but  with  a  sharp-toned  bell,  and  I 
could  see  him  in  advance  of  any  disturbance 
quietly  reaching  his  hand  out  for  that  unusual 
symbol  of  authority.  The  instant  a  clash  seemed 
imminent  he  rang  the  bell  and  the  danger  point 
passed  without  an  upheaval.  It  was  his  ceaseless 
vigilance,  too,  I  believed,  that  kept  the  speakers 
on  the  track ;  his  ready  bell  seemed  to  sound  warn- 
ing in  advance  of  actual  wanderings.  I  have  sel- 
dom seen  a  more  orderly  body;  even  in  the  hot 
days  when  the  row  precipitated  by  the  Anarchists 
was  uppermost  and  the  Bolshevics  started  to 
leave  the  hall,  one  could  not  really  say  there  was 
disorder. 

The  other  man  that  impressed  me  was  Tsera- 
telli,  at  that  time  the  Minister  of  Posts  and  Tele- 
graphs,— so-called,  though  any  other  designation 
would  have  done  as  well.    In  a  land  of  orators  he 

85 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

and  Kerensky  were  the  most  famous  and  admired. 
Like  Tschaidse,  Tseratelli  had  been  a  victim  of 
the  Czar's  oppressive  government;  ten  years  he 
had  spent  in  a  frightful  dungeon  of  Siberia.  Like 
Tschaidse  again  he  was  ordinarily  among  the 
most  reticent  of  men,  a  habit  that  had  undoubt- 
edly grown  upon  both  in  their  prison  experience. 
Tseratelli  was  tall,  slender,  with  dark  and  rather 
sunken  eyes  and  a  singular  manner  of  detach- 
ment, as  if  he  were  always  thinking  about  some- 
thing else  than  the  subject  in  hand.  He  answered 
questions  or  responded  to  remarks  with  the  ut- 
most brevity ;  I  never  knew  him  to  volunteer  any 
conversation  on  his  own  account.  He  had  at  one 
time  a  great  popularity  and  in  the  Bolshevic  dis- 
turbances of  July  it  was  his  powerful  appeal  that 
restored  quiet.  His  oratory  seemed  to  be  spon- 
taneous and  unpremeditated.  He  began  slowly 
and  not  always  without  some  trace  of  hesitation 
and  gradually  rose  to  the  full  measure  of  his 
unusual  powers.  He  had  not  so  great  a  reputa- 
tion as  Kerensky,  but  I  believe  his  was  neverthe- 
less the  greater  oratorical  gift. 

Kerensky  struck  me  as  in  general  intellectual 
power,  also,  not  up  to  the  stature  of  Tseratelli 
and  Tschaidse,  and  in  that  judgment  I  believe 

86 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

thinking  Russians  will  generally  agree  with  me. 
It  is  a  remarkable  fact  and  should  be  most  in- 
structive of  the  power  of  the  press,  that  Keren- 
sky's  greatest  reputation  was  in  the  United  States. 
It  was  only  here  that  he  was  hailed  as  a  "dicta- 
tor", man  of  the  hour  or  ruler  of  the  tempest. 
In  the  space  of  a  few  weeks  the  press  of  America 
created  a  hero,  mapped  out  his  work,  and  dis- 
charged him  is  disgust  when  he  failed  to  perform 
the  task  it  had  assigned  and  of  which  he  had 
never  heard. 

For  the  simple  truth  is  that  M.  Kerensky  was 
never  the  "dictator"  of  Russia,  was  never  clothed 
with  any  such  power,  never  attempted  to  exert  it 
and  never  was  in  any  position  to  save  or  change 
the  situation  by  means  of  any  authority  con- 
ferred upon  or  attainable  by  him.  He  was  not 
only  no  dictator  but  probably  never  had  any 
dream  of  being  one  and  could  not  have  been  if  he 
had  desired.  Because  no  man  could  be  dictator  of 
Russia  without  the  consent  of  the  Russian  people 
and  there  were  no  people  under  the  sun  at  that 
time  so  absolutely  hostile  to  anything  in  the  na- 
ture of  a  dictatorship  as  the  Russians.  All  the 
time  American  newspapers  were  picturing  M. 
Kerensky  as  about  to  perform  this  or  that  awe- 

87 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

compelling  feat  of  leadership,  that  most  excellent 
and  well  meaning  man  was  without  any  power  to 
do  anything  except  as  the  National  Council  might 
direct.  But  of  course  this  was  but  another  in- 
stance of  a  wish  that  fathered  a  thought,  and 
those  that  hesitate  to  believe  unreservedly  in  the 
people's  power  to  rule  themselves  are  driven 
irresistibly  to  the  refuge  of  a  Napoleon  even  when 
one  has  to  be  created  for  them  out  of  the  impossi- 
ble materials  afforded  by  the  Eussian  situation. 

The  scorn  with  which  the  same  newspapers 
treated  their  imaginary  " dictator"  when  he  seem- 
ingly failed  was  as  irrational.  No  one,  situated 
as  he  was,  without  real  power  and  confronted  with 
an  inevitable  event,  could  have  done  any  better 
than  he  did.  He  was  an  administrative  chief  and 
in  the  details  of  his  department  did  well  so  long 
as  he  lasted.  But  it  was  perfectly  evident  from 
the  time  he  took  office  that  some  such  crisis  as  the 
Bolshevic  upheaval  was  certain  unless  Eussia 
could  be  set  right  in  its  mind  in  regard  to  the 
Allies  and  their  purposes;  and  when  the  crisis 
came  it  span  out  of  its  way  not  only  Kerensky, 
who  had  no  power,  but  the  National  Council,  which 
had  much. 

The  stories  about  Kerensky 's  "  dictatorship' ' 

88 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

were  like  the  stories  about  his  feeble  health.  Ac- 
cording to  the  pathetic  accounts  that  over  here 
called  forth  sympathetic  poems  and  endless  lauda- 
tion this  poor  man  was  already  doomed  to  an 
early  grave  but  dragged  out  his  last  few  days  that 
he  might  be  Russia's  Napoleon  and  lead  her  back 
from  the  perilous  cliffs  of  radicalism  to  safer  and 
saner  paths;  very  likely  of  constitutional  mon- 
archy, for  instance,  or  something  else  not  too  ad- 
vanced for  our  susceptible  nerves.  While  I  was 
in  Petrograd,  at  least,  there  was  not  the  slight- 
est indication  of  invalidism  on  Kerensky's  part. 
He  was  attending  with  great  energy  and  industry 
to  his  work  as  Minister  of  War,  he  was  making 
frequent  addresses  of  great  power  and  eloquence, 
his  step  was  as  quick  and  firm,  his  voice  as  full 
and  steady,  his  hand  clasp  as  powerful  and  warm 
as  if  he  were  in  perfect  health.  A  robust  man, 
certainly,  he  could  never  be.  But  there  was  not 
the  slightest  indication  of  extreme  ill  health.  I 
did  see  Terestchenko,  the  brilliant  young  man  that 
was  then  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  perform 
one  night  an  act  of  conspicuous  endurance,  for 
suffering  from  an  ailment  that  produces  probably 
the  most  intense  agony  of  which  this  mortal  frame 
is   capable,  he   stood  and  listened   to   two  long 

89 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

speeches  and  made  a  long  response  and  never  al- 
lowed a  suggestion  of  his  suffering  to  appear  in 
voice  or  face.  Terestchenko  was  thirty-six  years 
old,  an  Oxford  man,  a  great  traveler  and  an  able 
diplomat  in  the  old  school.  It  seemed  a  pity  that 
a  career  that  seemed  so  promising  should  be  cut 
short  on  a  mere  prejudice.  He  was  hated  by  the 
Bolshevics  because  his  father  had  been  very  rich. 
There  was,  however,  no  question  about  Terest- 
chenko 's  patriotism  or  that  he  had  as  much  essen- 
tial sympathy  with  the  radical  cause  as  any  man 
could  have  that  had  been  brought  up  at  Oxford. 
I  spoke  a  moment  ago  about  Eussia  as  a  land 
of  orators.  I  used  to  marvel  unceasingly,  both  at 
the  National  Council  and  on  the  Field  of  Mars, 
at  the  very  high  order  of  this  art  that  was  offered. 
I  remember  in  particular  one  night  at  the  Council 
when  there  appeared  a  typical  example.  A  dele- 
gate came  to  the  rostrum  to  speak  on  a  question 
that  affected  the  farmers,  of  whom  he  plainly  was 
one.  He  had  a  round  close-cropped  head,  a  sun- 
burned visage,  and  the  big  brown  veinous  hands 
of  labor.  He  wore  the  soldier's  tunic  and  high 
boots  and  looked  as  if  he  might  but  now  have 
emerged  from  the  trenches.  After  listening  a  little 
my  interpreter  told  me  the  man  was  unlettered 

90 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

and  probably  illiterate.  Among  the  delegates 
were  twenty  that  could  not  read  or  write.  Per- 
haps he  was  one  of  these. 

Yet  he  spoke  with  an  astonishing  fluency,  never 
hesitating  for  a  word.  He  had  all  the  resources 
most  orators  obtain  by  laborious  study  and  effort. 
He  knew  how  to  produce  effects.  He  modulated 
his  voice  to  suit  his  thought,  he  dealt  in  sarcasm, 
made  his  hearers  laugh  or  be  serious,  built  in  his 
climaxes.  Now  he  started  upon  his  peroration. 
Steadily  he  carried  it  along,  up  and  up  until  he 
burst  over  his  listeners  a  magnificent  torrent  of 
emotion  and  they  were  upon  their  feet,  cheering. 

Yet  this  triumph  of  the  uttered  word,  which 
seemed  so  wonderful  to  me,  did  not  seem  to  any 
Russian  a  thing  phenomenal.  The  like  had  fre- 
quently been  heard  in  the  Council. 

It  is  partly  upon  such  revelations  of  reserve 
power  that  I  based  my  confidence  in  Russia's  fu- 
ture, partly  upon  the  Russian  character  and  partly 
upon  some  other  things  to  be  dealt  with  later. 
But  as  to  the  point  of  character,  I  beg  leave  to 
draw  attention  now  to  one  suggestive  fact. 

The  police  system  of  Russia,  in  the  old  regime, 
was  the  most  elaborate,  extensive,  complete  and 
perfect  police  system  ever  devised.    Of  a  sudden 

91 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

it  was  abolished — utterly,  and  without  a  remain- 
ing fragment,  abolished.  Nothing  took  its  place, 
you  might  say.  A  few  men  in  citizen's  clothes 
volunteered  as  militia,  a  white  band  on  the  left 
arm  as  the  only  insignia  of  office,  often  without 
even  a  club  as  a  weapon. 

But  without  any  police  force,  Petrograd,  having 
more  than  2,200,000  inhabitants,  remained  one  of 
the  most  orderly  and  peaceful  of  cities,  more 
orderly  and  peaceful  than  any  great  city  in 
America. 

With  such  a  capacity  for  self-discipline,  self- 
restraint  and  a  decent  respect  for  the  rights  of 
others,  the  future  of  these  people  seemed  hard  to 
limit. 

But  the  absolute  requisite  of  their  rise  was,  as 
President  "Wilson  so  plainly  saw  at  the  time,  that 
they  should  have  a  chance  to  work  out  their  own 
problems  unhampered  by  foreign  interference,  and 
above  all  that  the  blight  and  curse  of  the  Prussian 
theory  of  life  should  be  kept  from  them.  All  the 
great  peoples  of  the  world  have  soared  to  their 
highest  achievements  from  some  period  of  national 
stress,  danger  or  upheaval.  It  seemed  safe  to  be- 
lieve that,  granted  liberty  and  independence,  from 
the  dark,  straining  days  of  1917  a  free  and  demo- 

92 


REAL  PROPULSION  AND  REAL  HOPE 

cratic  Russia  would  rise  to  dazzling  heights  to  do 
things  beyond  the  records  of  almost  any  other 
people. 

Even  in  its  days  of  bondage  Russia  had  pro- 
duced some  of  the  world's  greatest  literature, 
greatest  art  and  greatest  music. 


CHAPTER  in 

TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

"When,  at  the  deep-toned  signal  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, up  blazed  in  Russia  the  essential  but  long 
suppressed  democratic  passion  of  the  people  it 
seemed  for  a  time  as  if  all  skies  were  warm  with 
its  reflection.  It  was  like  the  sunburst  of  a  new 
religion,  broad  enough  to  embrace  all  the  children 
of  men  and  lofty  enough  to  satisfy  their  aspira- 
tions. That  a  light  so  promising  should  have 
been  later  darkened,  even  for  a  time,  by  the  phi- 
losophy of  force  is  a  sign  of  mourning  in  the  his- 
tory of  human  freedom  and  likely  to  be;  unless 
we  can  bring  ourselves  to  a  long  perspective  and 
admit  something  of  the  uncertain  twilight  that 
has  always  marked  the  moving  of  the  democratic 
spirit  on  the  face  of  the  deep. 

But  while  all  the  serious  aspects  of  the  New 
Russia  were  at  first  sound  and  good  I  shall  never 
deny  that  some  of  the  surface  manifestations  were 
a  trial  to  the  nerves  of  persons  late  come  from  a 
more  staid  and  conservative  view  of  democracy. 

94 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

In  the  middle  of  the  night,  somewhere  near  the 
heart  of  Siberia,  I  was  projected  from  sleep  by 
the  voice  of  our  assistant  train  manager,  raised  in 
vehement  protest : 

1 '  Niet,  tavarisch,  niet !    Niet ! ' ' 

That  is  to  say,  ' '  Comrade. ' '  After  the  Involu- 
tion everybody  in  Russia  was  " tavarisch" — the 
waiter  at  your  restaurant,  the  surviving  scions  of 
a  frayed  and  draggle-tailed  nobility,  colonels,  cap- 
tains, privates,  everybody.  To  hear  it  in  this  in- 
stance signified  nothing.  The  train  manager 
might  be  talking  to  a  trackwalker  or  to  a  fallen 
grand  duke. 

Immediately  there  arose  a  chorus  of  deep  gut- 
turals, evidently  conveying  dissent,  and  then,  to 
a  sound  of  sharp  scuffling,  the  car  rocked  sug- 
gestively. 

I  thrust  my  head  through  the  double  hangings 
of  silken  stuff  that  adorned  the  air-tight  window 
of  the  stateroom  once  sacred  to  the  Czar's  eldest 
offspring.  WTe  were  stopped  at  a  station  that 
stood  apparently  alone  in  a  great  moonlighted 
void,  and  about  one  hundred  armed  men,  mostly 
with  the  ugly  four-cornered  bayonets  sticking  from 
their  guns,  were  trying  to  climb  the  sides  of  our 
train.    Their  route  was  by  way  of  the  couplings, 

95 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

the  buffers,  a  handy  lantern  bracket,  and  so  to  the 
roof. 

The  whole  thing  was  excellently  staged  for  a 
film  play  of  a  holdup  by  bandits,  and  all  men 
knew  that  if  bandits  were  needed,  the  Buriats, 
<}lose  at  hand,  had  an  oversupply.  But  these  actors 
were  not  of  that  industry.  They  were  only  regular 
Eussian  soldiers  on  their  way  home  from  the 
front. 

The  train  manager  now  ran  forward  and 
made  a  few  well-chosen  remarks  in  vigorous  na- 
tive speech,  whereupon  they  came  clambering 
down.  Once  upon  the  ground,  they  explained  that 
they  meant  no  harm.  But  this  was  a  free  country 
now.  The  railroads  belonged  to  the  Government. 
The  Government  belonged  to  the  people.  They 
were  the  people.  They  wanted  to  ride.  Then  what 
was  the  matter  with  riding  on  their  own  railroad! 

In  those  days  such  episodes  were  become  fa- 
miliar all  about  Eussia  and  were  usually  quite 
innocent.  We  saw  them  every  day.  The  logic  of 
the  soldiers  might  have  some  flaw  in  it,  but  evi- 
dently it  was  a  flaw  that  bothered  them  little. 
Train  after  train  met  us  or  was  passed  by  us, 
loaded  with  soldiers.  Soldiers  jammed  the  com- 
partments, the  aisles,  the  platforms,  the  steps,  the 

96 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

couplers,  the  roofs ;  all  moving  homeward,  happy, 
sunburnt,  dirty,  and  harmless.  They  rode  care- 
free and  fare-free;  a  soldier's  papers  were  the 
only  ticket  required.  It  was  a  free  country.  The 
Government  hauled  them  without  charge  and  lost 
thereby  some  profitable  traffic,  but  in  the  existing 
conditions  it  was  too  wise  to  suggest  another  view 
of  the  matter. 

The  sheer  rebound,  all  this  was — foreordained 
and  not  alarming;  the  rebound  of  a  people  that 
for  centuries  had  gone  heavily  laden  under  a 
preposterous  and  half-mad  tyranny.  It  might 
easily  have  been  something  worse.  Sometimes,  in 
fact,  it  took  shapes  that  were  only  amusing  or 
mildly  irritant.  When  one  of  the  American  com- 
missioners remonstrated  with  a  Moscow  taxicab 
skipper  for  perilously  fast  driving  through 
crowded  streets,  this  judicious  person  replied  that 
the  country  was  free  now  and  if  the  passenger  did 
not  like  to  travel  fast,  he  could  alight  and  walk, 
at  the  same  time  drawing  up  to  the  sidewalk  and 
opening  the  door  to  facilitate  his  exit.  Restau- 
rant waiters  commonly  preferred  the  pleasure  of 
conversation  to  the  duty  of  bringing  your  soup, 
and  when  a  delay  of  perhaps  forty  minutes  was 
brought  to  their  attention  (delicately,  if  you  de- 

97 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

sired  to  complete  your  dinner)  responded  that  the 
country  was  free  and  the  son  of  freedom  defied 
the  tyrant,  or  words  to  that  effect.  A  barber  in  a 
Petrograd  shop,  being  petitioned  not  to  cut  too 
short  the  hair  of  one  of  his  victims,  observed  that 
the  country  was  free,  and  clipped  it  to  the  scalp. 

In  the  matter  of  domestic  service,  householders 
entered  upon  diplomatic  communication  with  serv- 
ants leading  up  adroitly  to  the  proposal  that  the 
floors  should  be  swept  or  the  dinner  cooked.  Old 
relations  of  employer  and  employed  received  some 
salutary  and  needed  joltings ;  with  the  turn  of  a 
hand  the  principle  was  established  that  he  that 
sells  his  labor  for  wages  does  not  necessarily  sell 
also  his  soul ;  and  no  one  could  deny  that  in  itself 
beneficent  was  the  discovery. 

Soldiers  rode  free  upon  city  street  cars  as  upon 
the  steam  railroads,  with  the  result  that  they 
soon  had  the  Petrograd  trolley  lines  practically  to 
themselves.  Nobody  else  could  get  in.  To  be 
sure,  a  man,  if  young  and  agile,  might  sometimes 
find  an  insecure  footing  upon  a  brake  beam  or  an 
axle  box;  but  I  mean  as  a  general  rule.  Thou- 
sands of  soldiers,  having  nothing  else  to  do,  rode 
up  and  down  the  line  all  day,  eating  sunflower 
seeds  and  enjoying  the  scenery;  with  no  other 

98 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

results  than  merely  bringing  the  civilian  popula- 
tion to  unwonted  exercise.  The  street  railroads 
are  owned  by  the  municipality.  Before  the  Revo- 
lution they  used  to  make  a  net  profit  of  about 
9,000,000  rubles  a  year.  After  the  Revolution  they 
were  operated  at  a  loss. 

It  was  with  sarcastic  reference  to  these  condi- 
tions that  the  national  convention  of  Cossacks, 
meeting  at  Petrograd  in  early  July,  adopted  unan- 
imously this  minute : 

"That  word  be  sent  to  our  families  at  home  that 
the  Cossack  soldier  is  true  to  his  traditions.  He 
neither  rides  on  the  trolley  cars,  chews  sunflower 
seed,  nor  pursues  women." 

However,  these  were  but  incidents  and  not  im- 
portant. Whatever  might  be  the  surface  excesses, 
underneath  there  was  the  strong  feeling  for  de- 
mocracy and  a  determination  to  have  it.  That 
this  was  sometimes  bedeviled  by  evil  agencies  was 
plain  enough  even  then  and  the  process  was  ac- 
celerated later.  I  think  the  story  of  the  Black 
Sea  fleet,  which  came  to  a  head  while  we  were 
in  Russia,  is  as  good  an  illustration  as  I  can  cite 
and  I  like  it  for  another  reason,  that  it  shows  how 
much  of  the  trouble  that  followed  could  have  been 

99 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

averted  by  any  apt  efforts  to  meet  the  enemy  with 
his  own  weapons. 

Since  the  Revolution,  the  Black  Sea  fleet,  head- 
quarters at  Sebastopol,  had  gone  on  well  enough. 
The  men  were  in  full  sympathy  with  the  new  order, 
in  favor  of  continuing  the  fight,  in  favor  of  keep- 
ing discipline  somewhere  near  par.  They  had,  it 
is  true,  established  a  committee,  or  council,  elected 
by  themselves,  that  conferred  with  the  command- 
ing officers  and  protected  the  interests  of  the 
sailors,  but  this  was  in  fact  well  and  not  open  to 
objection  from  any  reasoning  mind. 

Kronstadt,  the  great  naval  arsenal  of  Russia, 
was  a  hotbed  of  a  kind  of  dreamy  philosophy,  half 
natural  Anarchism  and  half  the  diabolical  work  of 
German  agents.  All  things  considered,  there  was 
not  then  a  great  deal  of  this  weedy  faith,  but  what 
there  was  produced  a  disproportionate  crop  of 
trouble.  One  day  an  emissary  from  Kronstadt 
appeared  at  Sebastopol  and  began  to  preach 
mutiny  to  the  Black  Sea  men. 

No  doubt  he  was  a  master  hand  at  this  employ- 
ment; no  doubt  he  knew  the  Russian  mind.  He 
drew  the  usual  entrancing  pictures  of  a  world 
without  war,  of  the  universal  brotherhood,  of  the 
cooperative  commonwealth,  and  then  urged  the 

100 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

sailors  to  start  on  this  road  to  happiness  by  dis- 
arming the  officers,  shooting  all  that  might  object, 
and  declaring  that  they  would  fight  no  more.  He 
won  them,  or  most  of  them,  to  take  his  visions  for 
real. 

The  committee,  or  council,  for  reasons  of  an- 
cient experiences,  had  no  love  for  the  admiral  in 
charge  of  the  fleet  and  was  glad  of  a  chance  to 
depose  him.  It  now  made  haste  to  order  that  all 
officers  should  surrender  their  arms  and  it  should 
be  the  supreme  and  only  authority.  Each  ship 
had  its  own  council,  which  sent  delegates  to  the 
general  council  of  the  fleet. 

The  officers  gave  up  their  arms  as  requested,  all 
except  the  old  admiral.  He  said  he  had  been  many 
years  in  the  navy,  had  never  surrendered,  and  did 
not  purpose  to  begin  now.  So  he  threw  his  sword 
and  revolver  into  the  sea. 

This  was  the  situation  when  Admiral  Glennon 
of  the  American  Mission  arrived  on  the  scene. 
He  had  no  knowledge  of  it  until  he  found  himself 
received  by  a  committee  of  the  sailors  instead  of 
by  the  officers  he  had  expected.  The  sailors  de- 
sired him  to  address  them.  So  he  spoke,  through 
an  interpreter,  words  of  moderation,  wisdom,  and 
common  sense,  and  when  he  did  that  he  touched 

101 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

the  potent  spring  in  the  Russian  make-np.  The 
typical  Russian,  with  all  his  idealism,  loves  good 
sense  and  calm  reason.  Admiral  Glennon  showed 
that  he  had  a  warm  heart  as  well  as  a  wise  head. 
He  talked  sympathetically,  and  when  he  had  rea- 
soned out  the  situation  the  council  decided,  all  but 
unanimously,  to  rescind  the  former  order  and  call 
the  strike  off.  The  arms  were  restored  to  the 
officers  and  peace  to  the  fleet. 

Old  General  Cassius  M.  Clay,  who  was  minister 
to  Russia  just  after  the  Civil  War,  used  to  insist 
that  there  was  a  strong  psychological  similarity 
between  Russians  and  Americans  and,  excellent 
judge  of  men  that  he  was,  he  had  expert  knowl- 
edge of  both  nations.  I  think  he  was  substantially 
right.  Anyway,  Russians  get  along  better  with 
Americans  than  with  any  other  people,  and  on 
just  grounds  we  may  believe  that  if  Americans 
could  have  had  a  fair  chance  to  dispute  the  field 
with  the  German  propagandists  they  would  have 
defeated  them  before  almost  any  Russian  audi- 
ence. 

I  have  mentioned  the  Revolutionary  ideals  about 
industrial  democracy.  Some  strange  eddyings  of 
the  tidal  wave  were  shown  in  this  direction  also, 
doubtless  under  more  or  less  Teutonic  instigation. 

102 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

The  men  employed  in  many  factories  and  some 
coal  mines  made  demands  on  their  employers  that 
started  icy  chills  along  the  spinal  cord  of  Capital 
and  thickened  the  gloom  that  dwelt  about  the 
Petrograd  Bourse. 

If  they  were  getting  two  rubles  a  day,  it  was 
common  for  them  to  demand  twelve.  The  gasping 
employers  protested  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  continue  the  business  on  such  terms,  in  some 
cases  pointing  out  that  the  increased  wage  account 
would  be  a  greater  sum  than  the  total  business 
of  their  enterprise.  To  this  the  men  responded 
that  the  division  of  the  products  of  industry  had 
always  been  grossly  unfair  and  the  object  of  the 
Revolution  was  to  right  it.  There  were  factories 
in  Russia  that  had  been  returning  annual  profits 
of  from  100  to  200  per  cent  and  paying  to  their 
employees  not  more  than  enough  to  keep  soul  in 
body.  All  such  conditions  were  now  slipping  off 
the  edge  of  the  roof,  and  if  the  proprietors  did 
not  care  to  divide  fairly,  they  could  close  the  shop 
and  get  them  home,  for  the  men  would  not  work 
except  on  the  terms  proposed. 

This  was  painful  tuition  to  the  proprietors. 
The  old  order  had  changed  indeed.  Where  were 
now  the  handy  black-coated  police  that  used  to  put 

103 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

all  labor  disputes  to  the  fine  arbitrament  of  the 
saber  and  make  quick  work  of  them?  Where  are 
the  snows  of  yesteryear?  There  was  not  a  help- 
ing hand  anywhere;  no  police,  no  militia,  no 
armed  guards. 

"Take  the  factory,  then,  and  run  it  your  selves,' ' 
said  more  than  one  owner,  perhaps  making  a  gi- 
gantic bluff.  f 
■  Sometimes  the  men  called  it;  sometimes  they 
threw  out  the  proprietor  or  manager  without  wait- 
ing for  such  an  invitation.  I  suppose  the  like 
could  hardly  happen  anywhere  outside  of  Russia, 
but  the  men  actually  began  in  many  instances  to 
operate  the  mills,  and  sometimes  and  for  a  while 
at  least  they  operated  them  successfully.  Those 
that  wonder  over  this  development  will  be  those 
that  have  never  heard  of  the  achievements  of  the 
Russian  cooperative  societies.  Of  course  the  men 
ofttimes  failed  and  had  to  recall  the  proprietor 
or  manager  and  compromise  on  what  they  could 
get.  But  the  world  may  well  take  heed  of  the  fact 
that  sometimes  they  made  the  enterprise  go  and 
annexed  unto  themselves  the  profit. 

I  saw  an  iron  foundry  in  Siberia  where  the  erst- 
while proprietor,  dwelling  in  a  handsome  house 
close  by,  was  privileged  to  see  from  his  windows 

104 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

his  former  employees  going  to  and  from  the  works 
he  had  long  commanded  and  from  which  he  was 
now  excluded.  It  is  possible  that  if  the  ideas  that 
ruled  in  July,  1917,  had  been  allowed  to  work  out 
their  natural  conclusions  an  amicable  arrange- 
ment might  have  been  made  for  these  experiments. 
It  is  useless  to  imagine  what  might  have  been. 
The  extremists  overcame  the  reasoning  men  and 
all  such  hopeful  chances  seemed  to  go  down  to- 
gether. 

When  the  industrial  disturbances  were  at  their 
worst  they  had  reduced  the  factory  output  to  40 
per  cent  of  normal.  This  was  regarded  as  calami- 
tous. The  era  of  the  extremist  came  and  caused 
the  40  per  cent  to  seem  in  retrospect  almost  good. 

Fundamentally,  the  men  that  struck  in  the 
Eussian  factories  had  fair  occasion.  They  had 
always  been  most  wretchedly  underpaid ;  even  in 
the  best  of  times  they  lived  in  horrible  poverty; 
with  the  increased  cost  of  living  brought  about  by 
the  war  their  choice  was  to  better  their  condition 
or  starve.  The  methods  they  chose  were  not  in 
the  handbook  of  etiquette,  nor  according  to  prece- 
dent and  custom,  but  as  a  rule  they  brought  home 
the  bacon,  or  at  least  some  of  it,  and  the  worst 

105 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

that  they  suggested  was  better  than  the  flat  rain 
that  fell  upon  the  land  thereafter. 

In  the  cases  where  the  men  took  the  factories 
and  did  not  fail  with  them  the  fact  was  due,  I  sup- 
pose, in  a  way  to  exceptional  circumstances,  to  the 
demand  for  a  needed  article  or  something  of  the 
kind ;  but  primarily  it  was  due  to  that  strong  ca- 
pacity for  united  effort  and  solidarity  to  which  I 
shall  have  many  occasions  to  refer. 

This  reminds  me  again  that  the  most  important 
fact  about  the  Eussian  situation  seemed  to  be  the 
fact  hardest  for  Americans  to  understand. 

It  was  that  as  to  all  matters  connected  with  the 
social  state  of  man  in  the  world,  the  average 
thought  of  Russia  had  gone  in  advance  of  the 
average  thought  in  the  United  States. 

When  Catherine  Breshkovskaya,  the  beloved 
1  'Babushka"  of  the  Russian  Revolution,  was  in 
this  country,  our  foremost  sociologists  made  much 
of  her,  and  among  them  she  formed  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  lady  renowned  for  good  deeds,  and  in 
some  circles  viewed  as  occupying  the  farthest  out- 
post of  social  advance. 

The  next  day  the  "Babushka"  asked,  in  slightly 
frostbitten  accents: 

"Who  is  this  lady,  Miss !" 

106 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

She  was  told  that  Miss  was  a  leader  of 

thought  and  action,  universally  esteemed. 

"Well,  I  can't  see  where  she  comes  in,"  sniffed 
Mother  Catherine,  who  had  picked  up  some  Amer- 
ican colloquialisms.  "I  talked  with  her  two  hours 
last  night  and" — with  great  disdain — "she  seemed 
to  me  nothing  but  a  philanthropist!" 

In  the  course  of  her  visit  she  frequently  ex- 
pressed her  astonishment  and  disappointment  that 
the  American  reformers  seemed  never  to  have 
thought  beyond  the  idea  of  being  nice,  charitable, 
and  kind.  They  had  no  social  vision  and  no  sus- 
picion of  another  state  of  society  than  the  system 
of  tooth  and  claw  they  saw  around  them.  This 
usually  awakened  astonishment  in  Eussian  re- 
formers; they  felt  they  had  outgrown  the  intel- 
lectual era  of  the  United  States. 

No  doubt  it  was  equally  true  about  political 
philosophy. 

"Where,"  asked  the  leading  American  liberal 
newspaper  in  July,  1917,  "where  are  the  Thomas 
Jefferson  democrats  of  Russia?" 

The  question  amounted  to  a  jest.  If  anyone 
should  take  to  Russia  the  political  principles  that 
we  call  Jeffersonian,  they  would  be  regarded  pre- 
cisely as  men  view  the  dug-up  fossil  bones  of  the 

107 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

dead  geologic  past.  Thinkers  would  put  on  their 
spectacles  and  look  the  relics  over  and  say: 
"And  men  really  used  to  deem  these  things  im- 
portant? How  odd!  But  they  are  a  nice  addi- 
tion to  our  museum  shelves." 

The  most  tolerant  Russian  had  a  tendency  to 
regard  us  as  but  little  more  enlightened  than  an 
English  Liberal,  and  an  English  Liberal  he  viewed 
as  a  kind  of  political  Hottentot. 

Sometimes  the  estimate  was  still  more  uncom- 
plimentary. I  happened  to  remark  to  one  of  the 
most  intellectual  women  of  Russia,  a  leader  in  the 
great  Social  Revolutionary  party,  which  at  the 
time  of  my  visit  was  in  a  majority  in  the  National 
Council,  that  a  great  many  persons  in  the  United 
States  knew  and  admired  her  work. 

"I  do  not  care  to  be  admired  in  the  United 
States,"  she  remarked  icily. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  the  United  States  is  a  dreadful  place, 
without  progress  and  without  hope." 

"Where  on  earth  did  you  get  that  impression? 
Some  enemy  hath  done  this.  We  are,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  a  pretty  good  sort." 

"No,"  said  she,  "I  got  it  from  studying  your 
American  literature.    When  I  was  in  prison  in 

108 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

Siberia  they  allowed  us  to  read  only  one  Ameri- 
can publication,  a  magazine.  I  read  it  carefully 
every  month  for  ten  years,  and  I  saw  from  the 
kind  of  matter  it  published  the  characteristics  of 
life  in  your  country.  It  is  hard,  cruel,  selfish,  un- 
inspired, and  given  over  to  profit  making,  ma- 
terial aims,  and  business.  In  those  ten  years  of 
reading  I  could  never  discover  the  slightest  indi- 
cation of  progress,  of  social  enlightenment,  nor 
of  any  purpose  to  keep  abreast  with  the  world's 
thought.  I  came  to  have  a  horror  of  America. 
It  must  be  one  of  the  most  backward  countries  on 
earth.' ' 

"What  was  this  magazine  that  thus  foully  slan- 
dered the  land  of  the  free?" 

She  named  one  of  our  most  famous  periodicals 
esteemed  as  a  triumph  of  culture  and  art. 

Those  that  had  felt  the  democratic  fervor  ani- 
mating most  Russians  for  months  after  the  Revo- 
lution could  never  bring  themselves  to  believe  it 
could  be  permanently  subjugated  by  the  triumph 
of  the  extremists  in  November,  1917.  When  these 
with  some  battalions  of  armed  men  dispersed  the 
constituent  assembly  and  seized  a  government 
they  had  no  mandate  to  operate,  the  deed  as- 
saulted the  strongest  convictions  of  the  majority 

109 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

of  the  Russian  people.  Why,  then,  did  they  sub- 
mit to  it?  Because,  in  the  first  place,  the  Bol- 
shevics came  with  a  fair  pledge  of  peace  for  all 
the  world  and  the  Russians  were  sick  of  war.  In 
the  next  place,  the  Bolshevics  had  the  Petrograd 
garrison,  and  the  great  majority  of  the  population 
of  Petrograd.  All  the  offices  of  the  government 
were  at  Petrograd ;  nothing  was  easier  than  with 
these  advantages  to  seize  those  offices  and  declare 
the  new  government.  Third,  there  was  the  draw- 
back of  an  undeniably  widespread  ignorance.  And 
finally,  the  Russian  temperament  objected  to  meet- 
ing force  with  force,  and  expecting  a  general  elec- 
tion to  be  close  at  hand  preferred  to  wait  for 
that,  when  they  knew  the  Bolshevics  would  be  de- 
feated and  a  government  with  a  popular  mandate 
take  their  place.  There  were  some  other  reasons 
that  might  not  appeal  much  to  the  western  mind 
but  were  powerful  upon  the  Russian  make-up  be- 
cause they  were  of  the  nature  of  fatalism. 

But  while  Russia,  waited,  the  Germans  made 
their  master  stroke,  outplayed  the  dreamer  Trot- 
sky, seized  the  Baltic  provinces  and  threatened 
the  new  democracy  with  annihilation. 

Nevertheless,  to  know  so  much  of  the  Russian 
spirit  as  is  contained  in  the  deeds  of  the  men  and 

110 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

women  that  gave  their  lives  or  their  liberty  that 
Russia  might  bo  free  is  enough  to  banish  pessi- 
mism about  the  future  of  these  people ;  even  in  the 
face  of  the  undemocratic  achievements  of  the  Bol- 
shevics,  faith  remains  unshaken  in  all  that  know 
the  records.  No  nation  that  could  produce  such 
martyrs  and  make  such  sacrifices  will  permanently 
surrender  itself  back  to  despotism.  As,  for  in- 
stance, the  case  of  Marie  Spirodonovo,  which 
might  be  entitled  The  Story  of  All  for  One  and 
One  for  All,  and  is  the  true  epitome  of  Russia  as 
in  faith  it  is. 

In  1905,  she  was  seventeen  years  old,  a  school- 
teacher at  Tambov,  twenty-four  hours  by  rail  east 
of  Petrograd.  To  look  at  her  you  would  have  said 
she  should  be  going  to  school  herself,  she  was  so 
slight,  girlish,  and  innocent.  The  governor  of  her 
province  was  the  greatest  official  rogue  and  beast 
in  Russia.  This  is  saying  much,  for  he  had  con- 
spicuous and  able  rivalry  for  that  distinction.  But 
I  think  he  was  the  worst. 

This  slender,  quiet  little  maid,  contemplating 
some  choice  performances  in  cruelty  that  the  gov- 
ernor delighted  in  after  the  Revolution  of  1905, 
said:  "This  fiend  has  forfeited  his  right  to  live, 

111 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

and  if  there  is  no  man  in  the  district  that  is  man 
enough  to  kill  him,  I  will  kill  him  myself. ' ' 

So  she  got  a  revolver  and  hid  it  in  her  muff, 
for  the  weather  was  cold,  and  went  in  the  morn- 
ing to  the  railway  station  where  the  governor  was 
to  take  a  train  for  Petrograd.  She  walked  up  and 
down  the  platform,  as  if  she  were  waiting  for  a 
train,  until  he  appeared  and  began  in  his  turn  to 
walk  up  and  down  the  platform,  attended  by  his 
suite.  She  waited  until  she  got  a  clean  sweep  at 
short  range,  when  she  pulled  out  her  revolver  and 
shot  him  through  the  heart. 

The  wolves  that  then  conducted  the  Eussian 
Government  concluded  that  they  would  make  of 
her  a  memorable  example.  He  that  was  lost  had 
been  a  precious  adornment  of  the  old  regime, 
skilled  in  cruelty,  in  upholding  the  sacred  existing 
system,  and  in  keeping  the  lowly  in  their  ap- 
pointed place.  Besides,  it  was  a  period  of  unrest, 
and  wise  policy  dictated  that  these  cattle  should 
be  shown  what  happens  to  such  as  revolt. 

So  they  inflicted  upon  her  the  most  frightful 
tortures  that  even  their  depraved  ingenuity  could 
devise,  and  beyond  that  is  nothing  that  can  cause 
pain,  physical  and  mental,  for  these  were  artists 
in  that  line  that  could  have  instructed  (and  aston- 

112 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

ished)  the  Apaches.  She  weighed  about  ninety 
pounds,  she  was  utterly  helpless  in  their  hands, 
and  they  tortured  her  not  for  one  day  but  for 
many. 

But  observe,  these  things  took  place  in  a 
fortress,  buried  from  the  world  and  supposedly 
from  human  knowledge.  In  some  way  the  news 
got  abroad  and  the  mutterings  of  the  people  began 
to  assail  even  the  dull  ears  of  wolfdom.  I  sup- 
pose it  was  rather  the  moral  force  of  millions  of 
men  united  in  one  judgment  than  the  least  regard 
for  anything  they  might  do.  Anyway,  the  wolves 
stopped  the  kind  of  torture  they  had  been  per- 
petrating on  this  girl  and  brought  her  to  what  they 
miscalled  her  trial.  The  original  intention  had 
been  to  put  her  to  death  when  it  should  appear 
that  she  had  been  made  to  suffer  enough.  It  was 
now  determined  that  instead  of  killing  her  out- 
right her  executioners  should  send  her  to  die  by 
inches  in  a  Siberian  prison:  solitary  confinement 
for  life.  The  prison  selected  was  500  miles  from 
a  railroad  station,  far  north  in  a  region  almost  in- 
accessible. There  she  was  thrust  into  a  cell  under- 
ground and  without  natural  light.  Eleven  years 
she  passed  in  this  dreadful  place. 

When  the  Revolution  upset  wolfdom  and  with 
113 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

it  the  Government  that  was  guilty  of  this  and  ten 
thousand  other  such  atrocities,  an  order  was  sent 
from  Petrograd  to  release  all  political  prisoners. 
The  jailer  refused  to  obey  it.  Some  time  elapsed, 
of  course,  before  the  fact  reached  Petrograd. 
Then  an  order  was  despatched  giving  him  twenty- 
four  hours  in  which  to  set  his  prisoners  free,  after 
which,  if  he  still  refused,  he  would  be  taken  out 
and  shot,  a  file  of  soldiers  being  sent  along  for 
that  purpose.  That  there  might  be  no  chance  for 
error  or  evasion,  the  new  order  gave  the  names  of 
the  eight  women  political  prisoners  that  the  rec- 
ords showed  were  confined  in  that  prison,  Marie 
Spirodonovo  being  one  of  them.  The  jailer  now 
summoned  the  eight  into  his  presence,  women  res- 
cued from  the  living  tomb  and  restored  to  the  day- 
light they  had  never  expected  to  see  again.  Some 
thought  it  was  a  dream;  some  a  new  and  more 
refined  cruelty  they  were  called  upon  to  undergo. 
One  was  convinced  she  had  died  and  the  proceed- 
ings related  to  her  soul  and  not  her  body. 

The  jailer  told  them  they  were  free. 

"Wait  a  moment,"  said  Marie  Spirodonovo,  "I 
see  here  only  eight.  There  are  two  more  women 
in  this  prison." 

"You  are  wrong,"  said  the  jailer.  "Here  are 
114 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

eight  women,  exactly  the  number  mentioned  in 
my  order.  You  can  see  for  yourself.  Here  are 
the  names. ' ' 

"Nevertheless,"  saiu  Marie  Spirodonovo, 
"there  are  two  more  women  in  this  jail.  I  have 
seen  them  and  heard  them.  You  must  set  them 
free." 

The  jailer  persisted  in  his  denial. 

"Very  well,  then,"  said  Marie  Spirodonovo, 
"all  go  or  none  goes.  Either  you  will  bring  out 
the  others  or  we  go  back  to  our  cells." 

"There  are  no  others,  I  tell  you,"  wailed  the 
jailer.  "Here  is  the  list,  and  here  are  the  persons 
it  calls  for. ' ' 

Marie  Spirodonovo  turned  about  and  led  the 
others  back  to  their  cells.  It  was  in  the  morning. 
Before  sundown  the  jailer  must  have  had  before 
his  eyes  a  convincing  vision  of  the  firing  squad, 
for  he  surrendered,  bringing  out  from  another 
part  of  the  prison  two  old  women  that  had  been 
there  so  long  their  very  names  and  offenses  had 
been  forgotten  at  Petrograd.  Then  Marie  Spiro- 
donovo and  the  nine  others  started  for  the  rail- 
road station  500  miles  away.  Part  of  the  distance 
they  must  walk.    The  two  old  women  had  almost 

115 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

lost  the  use  of  their  limbs.    At  first  they  could 
hardly  make  a  mile  a  day. 

It  was  for  these  reasons  that  although  the  Revo- 
lution began  on  March  12,  Marie  Spirodonovo  did 
not  reach  Petrograd  until  June.  She  brought  her 
two  old  women  with  her.  All  for  one  and  one 
for  all. 

Little  was  ever  made  of  the  fact  in  this  country, 
but  the  reformers  also  abolished  capital  punish- 
ment, which  in  ordinary  times  would  be  well 
enough.  If  there  be  any  sense  in  the  gallows  any- 
where, surely  there  is  none  in  Russia.  The  Rus- 
sian loves  not  violence  and  would  seem  to  have 
little  need  of  a  vision  of  the  hangman  to  keep  him 
from  it.  In  all  the  time  I  was  in  Russia  I  never 
saw  a  blow  struck  nor  a  serious  altercation.  Even 
among  great  masses  of  idle  soldiers  I  never  saw 
such  things.  I  did  see  thousands  of  soldiers  stroll- 
ing two  by  two  with  arms  about  one  another ;  also, 
I  did  observe  many  a  fierce  discussion  as  to 
whether  Germany  or  England  really  started  the 
war,  and  the  like.  But  when  it  was  over  the  dis- 
putants usually  walked  off  arm  in  arm.  It  might 
have  been  otherwise  and  far  worse  in  the  old  vodka 
days ;  I  do  not  know.  I  speak  of  it  as  I  found  it. 
One  of  the  most  astounding  changes  was  in  the 
116 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

church.  To  those  that  knew  old  Russia  nothing 
seemed  so  preposterous  as  a  suggestion  in  those 
days  that  this  institution  of  the  ages  could  ever  be 
made  democratic.  The  old  moss-grown  Greek 
Church,  unchanged  and  unchangeable  for  nine 
hundred  years,  rumbling  forever  around  and 
around  the  same  invariable  ruts — if  that  can  alter, 
men  might  say,  let  the  mountains  dissolve  and  the 
stars  fall  into  the  sea. 

Yet  the  remaking  hand  of  the  new  order  touched 
even  this  sacred  relic.  WTnle  we  were  there  a 
convention  or  convocation  or  something  of  the  en- 
tire Greek  Church  in  Russia  was  called  at  Mos- 
cow, and  it  hardly  did  a  thing  but  rip  old  tradition 
into  long  shreds  and  cast  it  on  the  scrap  pile.  No 
more  domination  of  the  church  by  the  government, 
no  more  making  of  bishops  and  archbishops  by 
governmental  authority.  Twelve  bishops  created 
by  the  Czar  at  the  dictation  of  the  vile  Rasputin 
dismissed;  their  successors  chosen  by  ballot. 
Hereafter  all  church  affairs  to  be  managed  by  a 
synod  chosen  by  the  votes  of  the  people  in  the 
congregations,  men  and  women  voting  together. 
Advanced  education  to  be  required  of  candidates 
for  the  clergy;  no  more  ignorant  priests.  All 
church  proceedings  to  be  open  and  in  the  daylight ; 

117 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

no  more  hugger-mugger  and  star-chamber  busi- 
ness. The  church  to  take  by  the  hand  any  other 
Christian  sect  in  any  land  and  to  work  in  harmony 
with  it.  No  more  sectarian  bitterness;  no  more 
persecutions  I 

And  next  I  tell  you,  as  the  strange  fact  with 
which  to  round  out  this  tale  of  the  impossible,  that 
so  far  as  I  could  learn  nobody  was  opposed  to  this 
program  of  sweeping  reform.  It  was  not  some- 
thing put  forward  by  young  hotheads  and  sourly 
fought  by  Ancient  Respectability.  Everybody 
seemed  to  be  in  favor  of  it,  just  as  everybody  was 
in  favor  of  the  Revolution.  For  that  is  another 
strange  fact.  You  could  have  passed  the  whole 
population  of  Russia  through  a  sieve  and  not  catch 
enough  regret  for  the  old  regime  to  supply  a  mute 
at  a  French  funeral.  Good  riddance  to  bad  rub- 
bish !  sang  the  nation  as  it  wrenched  the  shield  of 
Nicholas  II  from  the  sides  of  the  railway  cars  and 
cut  the  old  Russian  national  anthem  from  all  the 
music  books. 

In  the  church  convention,  convocation,  or  what- 
ever it  was,  one  of  the  prominent  figures  was  a 
priest  from  San  Francisco,  Father  AlexandriefT,  a 
good  man  and  able  citizen.  The  convocationers, 
whenever  they  got  into  a  clove  hitch  about  any- 

118 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

thing,  fell  to  asking  Father  Alexandrieff  what  was 
the  custom  about  such  things  in  American  delibe- 
rative bodies ;  for  you  must  understand  all  this  is 
new  business  in  the  church.  So  then  Father  Alex- 
andrieff would  state  what  was  the  American  cus- 
tom, and  the  convocation  would  think  it  a  good 
idea  and  adopt  it. 

Democracy  and  equality  for  all — Jew  and  Gen- 
tile, Russian  or  what  not,  all  on  one  plane! 
Against  the  somber  memory  of  Old  Russia,  now 
dead  and  gone,  think  for  a  marvel  of  a  Russia  in 
which  Jews  are  treated  exactly  like  Gentiles !  We 
have  lived  to  see  it,  and  it  alone  ought  to  crown 
the  Revolution  with  imperishable  glory.  But,  in 
truth,  the  hideous  persecution  of  the  Jews  in  Rus- 
sia was  never  the  will  of  the  Russian  people,  but 
the  work  of  the  old  ruling  class  that  will  never 
rule  again. 

For  I  think  I  will  end  this  show  of  marvels  by 
citing  this  remarkable  fact,  that  even  members  of 
the  old  ruling  class  and  some  beneficiaries  of  it 
did  not  seem  then  to  want  the  old  order  to  return. 
I  suppose  the  traitors,  the  trucklers  and  states- 
men of  the  Czar  that  tried  to  sell  Russia  to  Ger- 
many were  not  of  that  mind  because  the  fortress 
of  Peter  and  Paul  is  an  uncomfortable  residence, 

119 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

and,  capital  punishment  for  treason  having  been 
restored,  there  was  still  some  hope  that  they 
might  be  hanged.  But  I  mean  the  generality  of 
people,  including  certain  former  noblemen  out  of 
a  job. 

On  that  first  Sunday,  in  July,  when  the  great 
popular  demonstration  engrossed  all  Petrograd, 
armies  of  civilians  and  soldiers  marched  through 
the  streets  to  show  their  devotion  to  the  most 
radical  conception  of  the  Revolution.  In  the 
Nevsky  a  Russian  friend  called  my  attention  to 
an  ordinary-looking  citizen  strolling  along  the 
sidewalk  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  his 
rather  billycock  hat  somewhat  on  the  back  of  his 
head,  while  he  smoked  a  cigarette  and  looked 
with  interest  upon  the  moving  throngs. 

"Do  you  know  who  that  is?"  said  my  friend. 

I  did  not. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "that  is  the  Grand  Duke 
Michael,  the  late  Czar's  brother,  to  whom  he  of- 
fered the  throne." 

Out  in  the  street  the  people  marched  quickly 
along,  borne  up  visibly  by  a  new  hope,  their  eager 
faces  alight  with  it — men  and  women  that  six 
months  before  had  been  hunted  like  rats  by  the 
hounds  of  the  old  system  or  had  clung  to  life 

120 


TWO  ASPECTS  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH 

in  Siberian  prison  camps.  On  the  sidewalk  drifted 
this  man,  once  so  conspicuous,  a  piece  of  wreckage 
thrown  up  by  the  great  new  sea,  unregarded  or 
forgotten,  as  unregarded  as  the  mechanic  with 
whom  he  touched  elbows  and  with  whom  he  stood 
upon  a  plane  of  equality  at  last. 


CHAPTER   IV 
THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

Because  of  the  innovations  on  the  new  social 
program  and  because  of  the  incessant  misrepre- 
sentations dinned  into  our  ears,  it  was  a  censori- 
ous view  that  most  of  us  were  inclined  to  take  of 
New  Eussia.  But  after  all,  the  wonder  was  not 
that  some  things  did  not  go  well  but  that  anything 
went  at  all.  We  had  no  call  to  be  amazed  at  some 
degree  of  chaos;  the  real  wonder  was  that  there 
was  anything  else. 

According  to  all  human  experience  and  history 
the  only  normal  state  to  follow  the  Revolution  was 
maelstrom  and  whirlwind. 

We  were  strangely  prone  to  forget  all  this.  An 
enormous  hulk,  the  product  of  centuries  of  de- 
liberate effort,  had  borne  up  the  whole  structure 
of  organized  Russian  society.  The  eyes  and  minds 
of  all  men  were  always  upon  it ;  it  regulated  even 
the  minutiae  of  their  lives.  In  a  moment  this  huge 
thing  had  turned  turtle  and  gone  down.  Naturally 
it  should  have  dragged  everything  loose  in  its 
swirl. 

122 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

Always  heretofore  the  violence  of  a  revolution 
has  been  attuned  to  the  cruelty  of  the  oppression 
against  which  it  recoiled.  It  has  been  like  a  tree, 
bent  over  and  then  let  go;  it  has  rushed  almost 
as  far  in  the  other  direction.  The  oppression  in 
Russia  was  the  most  savage,  implacable,  blood- 
guilty  and  maddening  that  has  been  known  among 
civilized  men,  certainly  since  Caligula.  It  was  of 
the  kind  that  relishes  cruelty  for  its  own  sake ;  that 
develops  an  exquisite  and  dainty  taste  in  cruelty. 
Thoughtful  men,  looking  upon  it,  always  felt  that 
if  it  should  ever  be  overturned,  blood  would  surely 
have  blood  and  anarchy  would  pay  the  price  of  a 
monstrous  wrong  built  of  murder  and  tears. 

The  world  should  never  forget,  no  matter  what 
else  may  happen  in  Russia,  that  in  all  these  re- 
spects wisdom  and  prophecy  went  far  astray.  The 
Russian  Revolution,  when  it  came,  was  not  only 
the  least  sanguinary  of  all  great  revolutions  in 
history;  it  was,  all  things  considered,  remember- 
ing its  occasion  and  size,  the  most  moderate,  the 
least  impassioned.  The  true  story  of  those  first 
days  of  emancipation  has  no  reproach  for  the  Rus- 
sian people ;  on  the  contrary,  it  ought  to  be  hung 
up  for  their  everlasting  praise. 

And  it  would  be  well  if  for  all  time  another  fact, 
123 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

here  pertinent,  could  be  impressed  upon  us.  It 
is  that  without  exception  the  features  in  the  pass- 
ing situation  that  had  the  severest  criticism  were 
every  one  the  direct  and  sure  result  of  the  things 
the  Eevolution  rooted  out  and  of  them  alone.  The 
evil  autocracy  did  lived  after  it. 

Americans,  it  soon  appeared,  were  particularly 
likely  to  overlook  this  vital  point,  and  the  reason 
was  as  before  that  daily  they  were  treated  in  their 
newspapers  to  a  diet  of  gloom  concerning  Russia. 
But  if  any  of  the  dismal  jeremiads  of  that  day  be 
now  analyzed  it  will  be  found  to  be  either  some- 
thing that  never  happened  or  something  founded 
upon  an  aftermath  of  Czarism.  To  this  there  is 
no  exception,  even  to  the  Bolshevic  counter-revo- 
lution of  November,  1918 ;  even  to  the  imprisoning 
of  the  old  ministry ;  even  to  the  power  and  organi- 
zation of  the  Bolshevics  themselves.  If  there  had 
been  no  manifestation  of  this  kind,  reform  would 
have  rung  false  and  the  Russians  would  have  been 
of  such  a  make-up  as  to  be  the  fit  slaves  of  the 
next  oppressor  that  might  come  along. 

I  will  take  as  examples  two  of  what  were  then 
the  favorite  themes  of  writers  that  loved  to  sound 
the  harp  of  foreboding  over  these  dark  seas.  One 
is  what  was  called  the  mutiny  or  revolt  at  Kron- 

124 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

stadt  and  the  other  the  fact  that  after  the  Revo- 
lution Russian  private  soldiers  generally  ceased 
to  salute  their  officers. 

Kronstadt,  the  great  Russian  naval  station, 
used  to  be  one  of  the  important  defenses  of  Petro- 
grad.  The  town  lives  on  the  arsenal,  shops,  ships 
and  sailors. 

When  the  Revolution  broke  the  Kronstadt  sail- 
ors and  workers  rose,  killed  some  of  the  naval  offi- 
cers, imprisoned  others  and  in  the  end  declared 
the  place  to  be  an  independent  republic,  not  in  any 
way  answerable  to  the  Provisional  Government 
at  Petrograd. 

Superficially,  of  course,  this  looked  very  bad. 
It  meant  anarchy,  disorder,  chaos  or  almost  any- 
thing else  of  evil.  What  could  be  hoped  of  a  people 
that  would  do  such  things  ?  The  world,  properly 
shocked,  reading  the  despatches  that  dwelt  at 
length  upon  these  events,  drew  only  the  worst 
conclusions. 

But  the  other  side  of  the  story  was  never  told, 
and  when  that  is  known  it  takes  on  a  very  different 
look.  For  many  years  Kronstadt  had  been  for  the 
plain  sailors  of  the  Russian  navy  a  most  notorious 
hell  on  earth.  In  the  fortress  was  a  series  of  dun- 
geon cells,  far  underground,  unlighted,  wet  and 

125 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

infested  with  rats — the  reproduction  of  traditional 
horrors  of  the  early  Middle  Ages.  For  slight  of- 
fenses or  for  none,  for  the  whim,  caprice,  petty 
spite,  or  bestial  pleasure  of  an  officer,  men  were 
thrust  into  these  places.  Some  of  the  cells,  in 
frank  imitation  of  a  historic  torture-chamber, 
were  so  built  that  the  prisoner  could  neither  stand 
in  them,  nor  lie  at  length.  Men  condemned  to 
these  frightful  holes  sometimes  died  of  their  tor- 
ments or  went  insane  there  without  even  knowing 
for  what  they  were  being  punished. 

There  was  no  form  of  court,  of  trial,  of  hearing; 
no  sailor  had  any  chance  for  appeal  or  redress. 
It  was  like  a  chapter  from  the  history  of  the  Bas- 
tile ;  the  first  thing  the  poor  wretch  knew  he  was 
seized,  ironed  and  flung  into  the  dungeon.  Indeed, 
in  one  sure  respect  the  record  of  this  place  of 
villainies  went  beyond  anything  ever  said  of  the 
Bastile.  For  the  victim  of  the  monstrous  system 
of  Monarchical  France  was  always  a  person  that 
some  other  person  wanted  to  have  out  of  the 
way ;  there  was  always  a  reason,  however  hideous, 
for  the  Bastile 's  atrocities.  But  Kronstadt  is  a 
chapter  from  the  annals  of  human  devilry,  pure 
and  simple.  Its  victims  very  often  had  offended 
no  one.    It  was  a  principle,  if  so  it  can  be  called, 

126 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

of  the  naval  service  that  the  cells  at  Kronstadt 
must  be  kept  full  "for  the  good  of  the  service," 
that  the  dogs  of  common  sailors  might  know  their 
place;  that  they  might  never  forget  the  iron  rod 
that  hung  over  them ;  that  being  so  cowed  and  so 
kept  groveling  they  would  always  instinctively 
obey. 

It  was  a  theory  that  had  not  only  sanction  but 
high  warrant,  for  it  was  exactly  the  theory  upon 
which  the  government  was  conducted.  Kronstadt 
was  but  an  accurate  reflection  of  the  whole  system 
of  Russian  autocracy.  Dogs  and  beasts  were  the 
people  and  to  be  kept  so.  Who  should  care  for 
the  confinement  of  a  dog?  Who  should  care  if 
a  beast  be  beaten? 

Where  Kronstadt  was  not  available  the  same 
exalted  theory  was  carried  out  upon  the  ships. 
Men  were  daily  kicked  and  beaten  as  part  of  the 
routine.  Slight  transgressions  that  in  another 
navy  would  receive  a  reprimand,  a  word  of  warn- 
ing or  perhaps  no  attention  at  all,  were  here  pun- 
ished as  in  the  old  slave  galleys.  The  idea  that 
a  sailor  could  have  any  rights  or  be  entitled  to  any 
degree  of  justice  was  literally  unknown. 

Not  all  the  officers  of  the  Russian  navy  were 
brutes;  there  were  thousands  of  intelligent  and 

127 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

decent  men,  some  of  whom  it  has  been  my  privi- 
lege to  know.  But  the  brutes  were  in  the  ma- 
jority, were  in  sympathy  with  the  theory  and 
practice  of  the  government,  had  their  own  lawless 
way,  and  piled  up  a  terrible  account  to  be  settled. 
It  was  strange  that  they  seemed  to  learn  nothing 
from  the  sobering  experiences  of  the  Japanese 
War.  The  two  Russian  ships  that  in  the  great 
battle  in  the  Sea  of  Japan  mutinied  and  refused  to 
fight,  the  four  other  Russian  ships  that  mutinied 
and  ran  away,  taught  them  nothing.  Even  the 
marvelous  and  tragic  story  I  am  to  tell  hereafter, 
of  the  cruiser  Potemkin  in  1905,  which  tutored  all 
other  spectators,  even  the  gathering  clouds  of 
revolutionary  storm,  had  no  message  for  them. 
The  rest  of  Russian  autocracy  might  seem  to  be 
cracking  in  those  months  from  Bloody  Monday, 
1905,  to  March  12,  1917,  but  the  day  of  reckoning 
came  around  and  found  the  reeking  dungeons  of 
Kronstadt  as  full  as  ever. 

Likewise  on  the  night  of  that  memorable  day 
they  were  full,  but  full  now  of  other  tenants. 

At  the  crash  of  the  Revolution  the  soldiers  and 
workers  of  Kronstadt  killed  certain  of  the  hated 
officers,  and  thrust  others  into  the  prison  cells 
to  which  they  had  been  so  fond  of  sending  help- 

128 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

less  sailors.    What  would  you  expect  them  to  dot 

The  independent  republic  at  Kronstadt  was  a 
bit  of  serio-comic  blundering  like  the  ending  of  the 
Potemkin's  cruise,  but  even  that  has  its  adequate 
explanation. 

As  soon  as  the  Revolution  came  most  of  the  ex- 
isting local  governments  in  Russia  went  out  of 
business  and  their  places  were  taken  by  Pro- 
visional Committees,  which  steered  the  machine 
until  new  city  councils  could  be  elected.  The  world 
has  been  made  to  resound  with  tales,  real  and 
fictional,  of  things  all  askew  in  Russia.  Nobody 
has  ever  pointed  out  the  fact  that  most  of  these 
committees,  although  made  up  of  men  that  about 
such  a  business  were  greener  than  grass,  turned 
off  an  exceedingly  workmanlike  job  of  municipal 
management. 

Kronstadt,  of  course,  went  with  the  rest,  only 
farther  than  many.  Instead  of  a  Provisional 
Committee,  it  put  all  the  local  power  into  the 
hands  of  its  Council  of  Sailors'  and  Workmen's 
Delegates,  which  immediately  took  command  of 
the  municipality. 

Probably  the  Council  was  arrogant.  Men  sud- 
denly swept  out  of  a  hideous  slavery  into  great 
power  are  not  usually  noted  for  a  sweet  and  lamb- 

129 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

like  disposition.  Anyway,  the  Council  sent  word 
to  the  Provisional  Government  in  Petrograd,  de- 
manding to  be  represented  in  its  deliberations. 
The  only  notice  the  Provisional  Government  took 
of  this  was  to  send  a  man  to  represent  it  in  the 
Kronstadt  Council. 

This  was  the  worst  possible  blunder.  As  one 
of  the  Kronstadt  men,  who  had  been  in  America, 
put  it  to  me,  it  was  as  if  the  Senate  at  Wash- 
ington had  refused  to  seat  a  Senator  from  New 
York,  but  had  sent  one  of  its  own  members  to 
sit  in  the  New  York  Legislature. 

So  they  seceded,  started  the  independent  re- 
public of  Kronstadt,  and  walked  their  wild  and 
picturesquely  lunatic  road  until  they  crashed  into 
the  Cossack  machine-guns  that  July  day  in  front 
of  the  old  Duma  building.  After  which  the  In- 
dependent Republic  of  Kronstadt  seems  largely 
to  have  disappeared  from  these  scenes. 

But  naturally,  overt  events  of  this  kind  played 
directly  into  the  hands  of  the  restless  German 
propaganda  and  after  the  first  few  days  there 
was  plenty  of  trouble,  all  of  a  familiar  brand, 
being  truly  made  in  Germany.  German  agents 
were  at  that  time  chiefly  busy  along  the  whole 
Russian  front  telling  the  soldiers  that  the  Revo- 

130 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

lution's  creed  of  public  ownership  meant  an  im- 
mediate division  of  all  the  lands,  and  if  they 
wanted  to  get  in  they  must  be  on  their  way  home ; 
but  in  the  intervals  of  these  employments  time 
was  found  to  push  along  disaffection  at  Kron- 
stadt  or  elsewhere  and  of  course,  incessantly, 
to  emphasize  to  the  American  and  other  publics 
the  most  evil  aspect  of  every  development. 

Conditions  of  almost  insane  cruelty  in  the  Rus- 
sian navy  that  made  the  story  of  Kronstadt  a 
certain  fruitage  of  savagery  were  duplicated  in 
the  Russian  army  with  similar  results.  When  the 
Revolution  came  and  the  tension  snapped,  I  think 
it  is  wonderful  that  far  worse  things  were  not 
recorded.  Contemplating  the  real  life  of  a  Rus- 
sian soldier  under  the  old  system  I  could  never 
be  astonished  that  soldiers  ceased  to  salute  their 
officers;  the  only  thing  that  astonished  me  was 
that  there  were  any  officers  left  alive  to  be  saluted. 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  always  that  military 
service  in  Russia  was  compulsory,  army  or  navy. 
A  Russian  that  did  not  like  to  be  kicked  had  no 
chance  to  stay  out  of  that  service.  Upon  ar- 
riving at  military  age  he  was  practically  seized 
by  the  government  and  forced  into  a  huge  organi- 
zation where  he  had  fewer  rights  than  a  horse  and 

131 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

a  far  worse  time.  He  had  in  fact  ceased  to  be 
anything  human  or  vital  and  became  a  doormat 
upon  which  the  officers  wiped  their  feet  when  in 
good  humor,  and  a  block  upon  which  they  vented 
their  spite  when  they  were  ill-tempered. 

Those  that  have  studied  the  strange  records 
made  by  human  beings  whenever  they  have  been 
in  positions  of  unlimited  power  know  well  enough 
that  cruelty  is  another  monster  that  grows  by  what 
it  feeds  upon.  Moreover,  we  are  to  take  note  here 
of  the  significant  fact  that  most  of  the  officers  of 
the  Russian  army  were  of  the  aristocracy  or  the 
near-aristocracy.  For  generations  that  class  had 
understood  its  security  to  lie  in  keeping  the  masses 
in  a  state  of  subjection,  and  the  best  way  to  do 
that  was  every  day  silently  pointed  out  by  the 
abominable  government.  It  was  to  beat  and  ter- 
rorize them  into  abject  humility. 

The  result  was  that  if  there  was  anything  worse 
on  earth  than  the  Russian  naval  service  it  was  the 
Russian  army  service. 

In  Petrograd  I  became  well  acquainted  with  a 
young  man  that  was  a  type  of  the  best  there  is 
among  the  Russian  youth,  stalwart,  upstanding, 
intelligent  and  thoughtful.  He  was  at  that  time  a 
non-commissioned  officer  in  the  Russian  army  and 

132 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

I  will  set  down  here  his  experiences  under  the 
monarchy  because  they  may  be  taken  as  a  fair 
average  example  of  stories  I  gleaned  on  every  side 
and  not  open  to  question. 

His  family,  although  of  the  lower  orders,  was 
fairly  well-to-do  and  he  had  been  well  educated. 
When  the  time  came  for  his  military  training  he 
was  drafted  into  the  infantry.  A  scoundrelly  drill- 
sergeant  gave  to  him  and  other  raw  recruits  about 
eight  weeks  of  instruction,  conveyed  chiefly 
through  the  toe  of  the  sergeant's  boot  vigorously 
applied  and  liberally  assisted  with  curses.  He 
was  then  put  into  a  squad  and  employed  to  clean 
the  officers'  boots,  empty  their  slop-jars  and  re- 
ceive their  kicks  and  abuse.  He  said  that  by  some 
innocent  oversight  he  incurred  the  ill-will  of  one 
of  these  officers.  The  next  day  at  dress  parade 
this  officer  walked  down  the  line  until  he  came 
opposite  my  friend  and  then  deliberately  spat  in 
his  face — three  times.  The  soldier  raised  his  hand 
furtively  to  wipe  the  spittle  out  of  his  eyes. 

"What  does  this  beast  mean  by  raising  his 
hand?"  said  the  officer.  "Take  him  to  the  guard- 
house!" 

So  they  took  him  to  the  guardhouse  and  kicked 
and  beat  him  when  they  got  him  inside  the  door. 

133 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

Then  they  threw  him  into  a  cell  to  stay  ten  days — 
the  first  day  without  food  or  drink,  the  rest  on 
bread  and  water.  On  the  first  day  the  officer  came 
in,  spat  in  his  face,  cursed  him  and  kicked  him. 
Two  days  later  this  officer  brought  in  other  officers 
to  watch  and  enjoy  this  noble  sport.  It  seemed  to 
amuse  them  greatly. 

He  told  me  that  many  times  he  has  seen  mad- 
dening performances  like  this:  At  inspection  or 
drill  an  officer  would  pass  down  the  line  and  inten- 
tionally knock  a  soldier's  cap  sidewise. 

1  'You  miserable  swine!"  he  would  instantly 
bawl,  "what  the  devil  do  you  mean  by  standing 
there  with  your  cap  on  crooked?  Put  it  on  straight 
instantly,  and  meantime  I  will  give  you  a  week's 
imprisonment." 

The  poor  unfortunate  wretch  would  now  raise 
his  hand  to  straighten  his  cap. 

"Dog  that  you  are!"  the  officer  would  shout. 
"What  the  devil  do  you  mean  by  getting  out  of 
position?  I  will  have  you  beaten  within  an  inch 
of  your  life.    Take  this  pig  to  the  guardhouse." 

Against  this  monstrous  system,  which  had  a 
million  ramifications  and  variations  according  to 
the  diabolical  ingenuity  of  the  torturer,  the  victim 
had  not  a  shadow  of  redress  nor  hope.    If  he  so 

134 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

much  as  murmured  or  protested  he  could  be  taken 
out  and  shot  for  mutiny. 

The  men  were  taught  a  formula  of  assent  with 
which  they  were  obliged  to  respond  to  every  ques- 
tion by  an  officer,  and  the  slightest  variation  in  the 
words  of  the  formula  or  its  arrangement  meant 
punishment.    For  instance: 

Officer:  "That  is  a  spot  of  rust  on  your  rifle, 
is  it  not?" 

Soldier :    ' '  Sir,  it  is  indeed,  sir,  as  you  say,  sir. ' ' 

If,  instead  of  this  arrangement,  he  should  say 
"Yes,  sir,"  or  "Indeed,  sir,  it  is  as  you  say,  sir," 
he  would  be  punished. 

There  might  be  no  rust  whatever  on  the  man's 
rifle  and  probably  was  none.  He  must  neverthe- 
less assent  to  the  officer's  statement.  No  matter 
how  false  it  might  be  about  anything  he  must  still 
assent  to  it — in  the  formula  I  have  mentioned,  and 
none  other.  Occasionally  at  some  kind  of  a  hear- 
ing a  private  might  be  called  upon  to  answer  some 
question.  No  matter  what  it  might  be  about  nor 
how  great  the  perjury,  he  must  always  endorse 
the  officer — in  that  same  formula. 

"The  typical  Russian,"  said  my  friend,  "is  sen- 
sitive and  rather  high-strung.  Because  he  is  high- 
strung  a  little  of  this  sort  of  thing  will  often  con- 

135 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

fuse  him,  when  in  spite  of  himself  he  will  be  likely 
to  commit  fresh  blunders.  With  the  most  mali- 
cious cunning  the  officers  used  to  play  upon  the 
Russian  susceptibilities  and  drive  and  nag  their 
men  into  committing  breaches  of  the  rules  that 
would  bring  down  the  heaviest  punishments. 

"The  result  of  all  this  huge  mass  of  evils,  the 
beatings,  kickings,  imprisonments  and  terrible 
wrongs,  was  that  millions  of  men  in  Russia  went 
through  life  with  an  unappeased  and  almost  in- 
sane hatred  of  the  military  establishment.  Salute 
their  officers?  They  had  much  rather  kill  them. 
"What  would  you  expect  ?  The  Revolution  came 
and  gave  to  many  such  men  the  chance  they  had 
dreamed  of  in  long  hours  of  torture  and  intoler- 
able humiliation.  Some  of  them  went  out  and  shot 
their  officers,  and  the  rest  had  inexpressible  pleas- 
ure in  abolishing  the  salute  to  the  brutes. 

' '  Of  course  all  officers  were  not  like  this.  Very 
many  of  them  were  courteous,  decent,  and  kindly. 
You  will  find  them  still  in  the  service,  still  obeyed 
and  often  still  saluted.  The  brutes  are  dead  or 
run  away  or  gotten  out  of  range.  All  in  all,  what 
seems  to  me  the  most  wonderful  thing  is  the  small 
number  we  shot.    When  I  think  of  what  I  saw  in 

136 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

the  service  we  seem  either  very  forgiving  or  very 
forgetful." 

In  the  same  way  and  just  as  inevitably  the  futile 
attempt  to  manage  the  army  through  soldiers' 
committees,  of  which  so  much  has  been  made  in 
this  country,  was  nothing  but  the  normal  outcome 
of  the  army  under  Czarism.  The  soldiers  had 
an  instinctive  feeling  that  they  could  not  trust 
officers  capable  of  so  misusing  their  own  men,  and 
I  have  yet  to  find  any  reason  to  think  the  soldiers' 
feelings  about  this  were  wrong,  unless  we  are  will- 
ing to  repudiate  all  records  and  assume  it  is  not 
true  after  all  that  the  bully  is  also  the  coward. 

But  I  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  if  I  once  more 
insist  that  the  bully  in  the  army  or  the  bully  in 
the  navy  had  at  least  this  excuse — that  whenever 
he  carried  out  his  atrocities  upon  the  defenseless 
he  was  strictly  upholding  the  favorite  traditions 
and  practices  of  his  government. 

Recording  merely  the  facts  and  without  seeking 
to  advocate  or  oppose  anything,  it  was  here  that 
much  difficulty  arose  in  trying  to  get  an  under- 
standing between  the  people  of  the  United  States 
and  the  people  of  Russia.  It  was  a  psychological 
difficulty.  We  could  not  really  sense  the  old  Rus- 
sian system  as  it  really  was.     "We  were  ready 

137 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

enough  to  admit  in  a  general  way  that  it  was  bad, 
but  to  know  how  bad  it  really  was  and  to  carry 
that  knowledge  always  with  us  as  the  ready  touch- 
stone to  lay  bare  every  Russian  mystery,  that  was 
clean  beyond  us.  Very  likely  it  was  beyond  any 
people  that  did  not  know  by  the  testimony  of  eyes 
as  well  as  of  ears  the  full  measure  of  the  old  Rus- 
sian government's  depravity.  For  if  we  speak  of 
descriptions,  what  words  in  use  among  men  would 
be  adequate  to  describe  this,  the  achievable  limit 
of  evil  and  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man? 

It  was  not  merely  a  form  of  government  belong- 
ing to  an  age  in  human  history  long  ago  outlived, 
and  it  was  not  merely  a  frozen  horror  crushing 
down  upon  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men.  It  was 
also  a  vast  and  curious  foundation  for  that  govern- 
ment, carefully,  cunningly  built  and  developed  by 
generations  of  astute  minds. 

In  the  end  the  base  became  by  man's  tireless  in- 
genuity infinitely  more  wonderful  than  the  thing 
it  held  up. 

Every  year,  you  might  say,  the  governmental 
system  of  Russia  demanded  of  wickedness  a 
greater  skill  to  keep  it  going.  The  task  was  to 
maintain  a  primitive  despotism  in  an  age  moving 
swiftly  toward  complete  democracy.    The  faster 

138 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

the  rest  of  the  world  forgot  the  Stone  Age  the 
harder  the  task  became  to  preserve  a  social  sys- 
tem suited  to  nothing  else.  For  some  generations 
the  character  of  the  sovereign,  arrogant,  brutal 
and  callous,  helped  out.  When  the  throne  fell  to 
a  half-witted  little  man,  as  weak  in  will  as  in  body, 
nothing  is  more  wonderful  than  the  expedients  to 
which  the  real  masters  of  Old  Russia  were  driven 
to  keep  their  ship  afloat. 

The  two  chief  assets  in  the  vast,  elaborated  and 
scientific  business  they  built  up  for  the  minute 
supervision  of  people's  lives  were  terror  and  ig- 
norance. By  maintaining  Russia  in  a  state  of  per- 
petual perdition  for  all  persons  that  were  sus- 
pected of  favoring  freedom  it  was  possible  to  hold 
over  all  such  minds  an  unchanging  fear  of  a  still 
worse  perdition — which  was  Siberia. 

People  that  know  freedom,  that  were  born  in  it, 
that  have  never  known  anything  else,  how  can 
they  grasp  the  meaning  of  this  any  more  than  a 
blind  man  can  grasp  the  tones  of  a  sunset? 

Russia  lived  with  a  huge  iron  heel  upon  her 
breast.  This  was  the  marvelous  police  system, 
divided  into  three  main  organizations. 

There  was,  first,  the  mounted  gendarmerie, 
139 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

heavily  armed,  ready  to  ride  down  any  manifesta- 
tion of  disorder. 

Then  there  was  the  acknowledged  city  police, 
black-coated  and  menacing,  chosen  for  physical 
strength  and  aptitude  for  cruelty.  These  were 
known  and  (with  reason)  feared  of  all  men.  There 
was  scarcely  a  block  in  a  city  or  town  that  was  not 
watched  incessantly  by  them. 

But  the  true  wonder,  of  course,  began  with  the 
third  division,  or  secret  police,  whose  strange  net- 
work of  espionage  wound  itself  around  every 
hearthstone  in  Eussia,  peeped  in  at  every  window, 
listened  at  every  keyhole.  It  was  this  that  chiefly 
kept  the  Czar's  crown  on  his  head  and  his  head 
on  his  shoulders,  year  after  year. 

Let  me  see  if  by  some  examples  I  can  convey 
to  those  that  have  never  known  anything  of  this 
kind  an  outline  of  life  as  it  was  under  the  Eussian 
police. 

Say  that  there  were  two  friends  among  the  In- 
telligentsia, the  class  most  suspected  and  pursued. 
If  they  rode  downtown  in  a  trolley  car  of  a  morn- 
ing, going  to  work  or  to  business,  they  never  dared 
to  exchange  more  than  formal  salutations  and 
sometimes  not  even  these.  If  the  car  conductor 
were  not  a  police-agent  in  disguise  there  was  sure 

140 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

to  be  a  police-agent  lurking  among  the  passengers. 
Almost  any  innocent  remark  dropped  by  either 
friend  might  be  reported  as  of  sinister  import, 
entered  against  them  in  the  colossal  records  that 
the  police  maintained,  and  used  at  any  time  as  a 
fingerpost  to  Siberia. 

In  restaurants  you  must  guard  every  word  with 
the  greatest  care;  the  waiter  is  probably  a  dis- 
guised policeman.  Be  careful  about  your  cabman ; 
many  police-agents  have  lately  taken  to  driving 
cabs.  A  beggar  solicits  alms  at  your  door;  he  may 
have  been  sent  to  overhear  a  disloyal  expression 
or  take  note  of  your  callers.  Write  your  letters 
with  scrupulous  attention ;  they  will  probably  be 
opened  and  read.  Be  most  discreet  about  your 
telephone  conversations;  it  is  well  known  that 
every  wire  is  tapped. 

Every  educated  man  was  particularly  likely  to 
be  an  object  of  suspicion.  The  mere  fact  that  he 
was  educated  proved  that  he  must  know  something 
about  the  outside  world  of  progress  and  its  opin- 
ion of  Darkest  Russia;  he  could  not  know  that 
without  some  degree  of  discontent.  Even  in  his 
own  home  such  a  man  could  never  be  sure  any 
moment  that  the  eye  of  a  police-agent  was  not 
watching  from  some  undiscovered  hole,  that  the 

141 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

ear  of  a  police-agent  was  not  listening  at  an  un- 
suspected cranny. 

If  such  a  man  seemed  to  be  of  careful  and  unob- 
jectionable walk,  this  sometimes  served  to  make 
the  police  administration  only  the  more  suspicious 
of  him,  and  then  the  agents  provocateurs,  the 
worst  of  all  the  instruments  of  evil,  were  loosed 
upon  him.  Someone  in  apparent  distress  begged 
his  help  and  told  a  pitiful  story  of  injustice  or  of 
police  cruelty  in  the  hope  that  he  might  drop  an 
expression  of  sympathy.  Canvassers  tried  to  get 
him  to  subscribe  for  suspected  journals,  book- 
agents  tried  to  sell  him  proscribed  books,  and 
visitors  dropped  npon  his  premises  revolutionary 
literature  that  it  might  be  found  there  and  used 
against  him. 

He  was  likely  to  find  at  any  time  that  his  pri- 
vate papers  at  his  home  or  office  had  been  mysteri- 
ously rifled  and  yet  he  could  never  detect  the 
stealthy  person  that  rifled  them. 

The  agents  provocateurs  often  developed  a  de- 
praved cunning  that  seemed  superhuman  and  must 
ever  remain  a  monument  to  mortal  capacity  of 
that  kind.  Many  of  the  records  of  their  deeds  sur- 
pass any  novelist's  imagination.  Their  filthy 
business  was  to  ensure  outbreaks  or  overt  acts 

142 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

that  suspected  leaders  of  the  people  might  be 
trapped  and  the  rest  might  be  terrorized  with  the 
spectacle  of  a  swift  and  awful  retribution.  They 
wormed  their  way  into  all  clubs,  societies  and  or- 
ganizations, even  when  these  were  of  the  most  in- 
nocent or  benevolent  character,  took  advantage 
of  men  off  their  guard  and  wrung  from  them  evi- 
dence usable  for  their  ruin.  Among  the  secret 
revolutionary  and  propaganda  leagues  they  be- 
lieved they  had  always  members.  These  some- 
times spent  ten  years  in  one  organization  before 
they  were  able  to  bring  about  the  thing  they  were 
after.  Very  often  they  themselves  would  suggest, 
plan  and  help  to  carry  out  the  assassination  or 
bomb  explosion  with  which  they  dragged  down 
their  quarry. 

Most  plausible,  ingenious,  skilful  men  and  won- 
derful actors  they  must  have  been.  When  brother 
suspected  brother  and  son  suspected  father  they 
still  managed  sometimes  to  pass  undetected  in  the 
most  active  revolutionary  circles.  The  world  read 
with  incredulity  the  confession  of  Azef,  one  of 
their  master-minds.  Yet  it  is  quite  true  that,  as 
he  said,  he  had  worked  at  the  same  time  with  the 
police  and  with  the  revolutionists,  and  had  be- 
trayed both.    To  win  the  confidence  of  the  revolu- 

143 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

tionists  he  revealed  to  them  the  secret  plans  of 
the  police,  and  then  when  time  was  ripe  revealed 
to  the  police  the  secret  plans  of  the  revolutionists. 
He  brazenly  avowed  that  he  suggested,  planned 
and  took  active  part  in  the  killing  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Sergius  and  then  revealed  to  the  police  all 
the  revolutionists  that  had  helped  him  in  the  kill- 
ing. 

He  was  but  a  type.  There  is  not  a  question  that 
the  hideous  system  developed  and  maintained  by 
Russian  monarchy  developed  in  turn  new  abysms 
of  turpitude  in  human  nature  and  new  kinds  of 
skill  to  carry  out  new  and  revolting  inventions  in 
crime.  Compared  with  the  horrible  wretches  that 
this  system  spawned  and  trained,  Titus  Oates  and 
all  the  other  historic  scoundrels  look  almost  re- 
spectable. Treachery  was  everywhere;  men  in- 
haled it  with  every  breath;  they  ate  of  it  and 
lodged  with  it  and  went  hob  and  nob  with  it  along 
the  streets.  Life  became  literally  blackened, 
cursed  and  poisonous  with  suspicion,  and  genera- 
tions of  freedom  must  pass  before  the  human 
heart  in  Russia  throws  off  the  last  of  the  most  de- 
testable poison  with  which  every  vein  has  been 
clogged  so  long. 

Turn  then  to  the  fact  that  in  the  midst  of  ail 
144 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

these  conglomerate  horrors  the  revolutionary  doc- 
trine was  spread,  the  revolutionary  plans  were 
laid,  the  ideas  of  advanced  freedom  and  democracy 
were  steadily  promulgated,  until  Russia  was  at 
last  made  free,  and  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  this  is  a  people  of  already  great  and  memora- 
ble services  to  the  cause  of  liberty  and  that  their 
services  are  a  sufficient  warrant  for  confidence  in 
their  free  future. 

For  we  are  to  remember,  also,  that  heroes  and 
martyrs  of  liberty  in  other  lands  have  struggled 
on  in  the  face  of  death,  but  the  Russians  that 
wrought  the  emancipation  of  their  country  worked 
under  the  shadow  of  something  still  worse. 
When  a  spy's  revelations  had  come,  or  the  bomb 
had  been  thrown,  those  that  were  hanged  were 
usually  the  most  fortunate.  The  others,  if  they 
were  leaders,  faced  shocking  tortures  first  and 
Siberia  afterward,  and  when  Siberia  meant  the 
"cold  katorga"  death  was  always  far  more  merci- 
ful. 

Exile  to  Siberia  had  a  wide  variety  of  meanings. 
Thousands  of  men  and  women  were  termed  exiles 
that  suffered  no  greater  hardship  than  to  be  turned 
loose  in  a  wild,  remote  country  and  allowed  nine 
cents  a  day  for  food,  clothing  and  shelter.    Be- 

145 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

cause  this  was  not  quite  unendurable  and  because 
of  the  stories  of  the  amusements  of  the  rich  exiles 
at  Irkutsk,  the  notion  has  spread  about  the  world 
that  Siberian  exile  meant  no  more  than  to  be  sep- 
arated from  one's  home  and  familiar  haunts. 
Some  writers,  who  must  have  been  singularly  un- 
discerning,  have  even  tried  to  shed  a  romantic 
halo  about  it,  as  if  Siberia  to  a  Russian  revolu- 
tionist were  about  like  France  to  a  Jacobite.  It 
was  the  men  and  women  no  more  than  suspected 
of  revolutionary  sympathies  that  drew  Irkutsk 
and  exile  within  the  fringes  of  civilization.  Those 
that  had  actually  raised  their  hands  against  the 
existing  order  fared  very  differently,  and  learned 
with  lashes  on  their  backs  as  they  were  driven  into 
the  mines  or  herded  in  huts  in  the  Arctic  Circle 
what  kind  of  revenge  unhampered  monarchy  takes 
on  those  that  dispute  its  divine  right. 

There  was,  for  instance,  a  camp  just  inside  the 
mouth  of  the  Lena  River,  reserved  for  the  most 
detested  offenders,  where  the  tortures  were  so  ex- 
quisite and  fiendish  that  the  principal  business  of 
the  guards  was  to  prevent  the  maddened  victims 
from  finding  release  in  suicide.  The  place  was  so 
close  to  the  North  Pole  that  the  Arctic  night  lasted 
for  months.    In  this  gloom  the  prisoners  were  not 

146 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

allowed  to  have  anything  to  read  nor  enough  arti- 
ficial light  to  enable  them  to  find  in  work  any  dis- 
traction for  their  minds.  The  demon  that  devised 
this  torment  certainly  shot  far  beyond  all  the  in- 
ventors of  racks  and  thumbscrews,  for  the  place 
was  reserved  exclusively  for  men  and  women  of 
refinement  and  education  upon  whom  its  horrors 
would  weigh  most  heavily.  He  judged  aright,  who- 
ever he  was ;  most  of  the  victims  went  insane. 

Looking  calmly  into  the  face  of  such  a  destiny, 
the  revolutionists,  harassed  by  the  police  and  sur- 
rounded by  spies,  went  on  with  their  propaganda 
and  permeated  the  greater  part  of  Russia  with  it. 
I  do  not  believe  the  history  of  liberty  has  anything 
finer  or  prouder  to  show.  Thousands  of  her  pa- 
tient, unselfish  soldiers  perished  in  that  long  fight 
and  left  not  even  the  shadow  of  a  name. 

The  world  may  take  Siberia  lightly;  to  anyone 
that  knows  the  Russian  history  it  will  always  be  a 
word  of  tragic  import.  In  seventy  years  there 
passed  through  one  Siberian  town  on  the  sorrow- 
ful highway  more  than  800,000  exiles.  You  may 
judge  from  this  fact  how  extensive  was  the  police 
business  of  manufacturing  terror.  When  the  sun- 
light of  the  Revolution  broke  upon  this  wilderness 
of  despair  every  political  exile  and  prisoner  in 

147 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

Siberia  was  at  once  decreed  to  be  free.  There 
were  more  than  200,000  of  them  in  Siberia  and  of 
these  20,000  were  in  camps  and  places  so  remote 
from  the  world  of  men  that  by  July  they  had  not 
yet  been  reached  with  the  glad  tidings.  You  may 
judge  from  this  fact  how  truly  Siberian  exile  was 
a  living  tomb. 

Eussians  are  among  the  most  generous  of  peo- 
ple, tolerant,  kindly  and  almost  singularly  free 
from  any  vindictive  impulse.  The  day  came  when 
the  men  that  had  been  responsible  for  all  this  red 
world  of  pain  and  misery,  this  "draining  of  eye- 
lids, wringing  of  drenched  hands,  sighing  of  hearts 
and  filling  up  of  graves,"  fell  into  the  power  of 
the  people  they  had  wronged  and  tormented.  Not 
one  of  the  red-handed  murderers,  from  the  Czar 
down,  was  injured  in  a  hair  of  his  head.  The 
worst  that  happened  to  any  of  them  was  to  be  con- 
fined in  a  palace  or  a  fortress.  Even  when  in- 
dubitable high  treason  was  added  to  their  other 
crimes  they  escaped  the  firing-squad  they  had 
earned. 

All  except  the  police.  It  was  the  hated  police 
that  fought  the  Eevolution.  It  was  the  police  that 
mounted  the  rapid-fire  guns  on  the  roofs  of  the 
houses  and  mowed  down  the  people  in  the  Nevsky 

148 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

Prospekt.  All  those  buildings  by  the  canals, 
around  the  Ministry  of  Agriculture,  along  the 
Morskaja  and  elsewhere  that  are  pitted  now  with 
bullet  marks,  got  their  ornamentation  because  the 
people  in  the  streets  must  fire  at  the  police  on  the 
roofs.  Those  green  graves  in  the  midst  of  the 
sandy  w^aste  of  the  Field  of  Mars  are  filled  every 
one  with  the  victims  of  the  police,  and  it  was  the 
police  that  the  crowd  beat  to  death  and  flung  into 
the  canals  when  the  tide  of  the  Revolution  rose 
high  enough  to  overflow  the  vicious  old  tyranny  at 
last  and  deliver  the  oppressors  into  the  hands  of 
the  oppressed. 

The  day  of  retribution  had  come.  But  it  was 
only  upon  the  police  that  the  vengeance  of  the 
people  fell.  The  hated  black  uniform  had  dis- 
appeared from  the  streets.  When  the  battle  on 
the  housetops  began  to  go  in  favor  of  the  popular 
cause  the  rotten  old  police  structure  fell  with  a 
crash.  Next  day  the  ice  in  the  canals  was  cov- 
ered with  the  bodies  of  policemen,  and  all  those 
still  left  alive  had  fled  in  disguise  or  were  locked 
up  in  that  island  fortress  to  which  they  had 
dragged  so  many  of  their  victims. 

And  the  great,  wonderful  system  of  interwoven 
espionage,  the  great  army  of  spies,  listeners,  lurk- 

149 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

ers,  eavesdroppers,  weasels,  ferrets,  hyenas,  Black 
Hundreds,  police-hounds,  dirty  dogs,  human 
wolves,  wire-tappers,  and  the  rest — what  became 
of  all  that? 

It  sounds  like  a  tale  of  unreality  or  of  magic, 
but  the  whole  thing  dissolved  like  a  mirage.  One 
moment  it  was  oppressing  all  men's  hearts  with 
its  scowling  and  unassailable  front.  The  next,  it 
had  ceased  to  be,  and  the  wolves,  ferrets  and 
hyenas  it  had  nourished  were  in  full  flight.  Great 
fear  must  have  come  upon  them;  very  few  have 
ever  been  found.  Some  got  over  the  border  in 
safety,  to  Sweden  or  Germany;  many  in  disguise 
still  hide  in  unsuspected  holes;  some,  under  as- 
sumed names,  enlisted  in  the  army. 

One  at  least,  even  in  the  terror  of  those  hot 
hours,  did  not  lose  his  cunning.  With  one  excep- 
tion the  only  buildings  the  crowd  destroyed  were 
police-stations.  A  crowd  with  torches  was  march- 
ing from  one  station  to  another. 

"Comrades!  Comrades!"  shouted  a  man, 
springing  upon  a  doorstep.  "On  to  the  Justice 
Hall,  on  to  the  Justice  Hall ! ' ' 

So  he  led  them  to  the  great  white  building,  the 
hated  place  whence  so  many  patriots  had  been  sent 
to  Siberia,  and  they  burned  it  to  the  ground  and 

150 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

it  contained  all  the  secret  records  of  the  police 
spies,  who  they  were  and  where  they  lived  and  on 
whom  they  had  spied. 

The  wolves,  ferrets  and  hyenas  breathed  freely 
again.  After  that  their  identity  could  never  be 
made  known. 

That  was  the  limit  to  which  the  violence  rose ; 
the  tidal  wave  of  chaos  normally  due  from  so 
great  a  convulsion  never  arrived.  Petrograd  and 
all  Russia  lapsed  into  a  state  of  acquiescent  good 
order  and  good  nature.  The  people  had  destroyed 
the  old  autocratic  government ;  they  took  no  inter- 
est in  punishing  the  elegant  thieves  and  scoun- 
drels that  had  conducted  it. 

It  was  probably  the  worst  government  that  ever 
existed  on  this  earth.  Autocracy  is  always  rotten 
and  always  a  curse ;  this  was  rotten  beyond  all  pre- 
vious records  of  autocracy  and  a  curse  that  made 
the  plagues  of  Egypt  seem  negligible.  It  contained 
men  that  had  stolen  the  money  appropriated  for 
rifles  and  sent  unarmed  Russian  armies  to  the 
front  to  be  slaughtered.  It  contained  men  that 
for  a  price  had  betrayed  Russian  armies  into 
places  where  they  were  caught  and  shot  down  like 
rabbits  in  a  trap.  It  contained  men  that  had  stolen 
food  from  soldiers'  lips  and  clothing  from  sol- 

151 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

diers,  backs.  It  contained  men  that  had  stolen 
cartridges  from  soldiers'  belts  and  shells  from 
great  guns.  It  contained  men  that  wallowed  in 
millions  they  had  stolen  from  taxes  wrung  from 
peasants  and  half-starved  workers.  It  contained 
men  that  had  agreed  to  sell  their  country  to  Ger- 
many. 

Not  one  of  these  was  hanged. 

Yet  they  inflicted  upon  Eussia  a  plague  that  will 
long  survive  them.  They  and  their  kind  crippled, 
broke  down  or  ruined  every  part  of  the  Russian 
government  machine.  They  made  it  inefficient 
and  incompetent  beyond  anything  men  have  seen 
since  the  final  impotency  of  the  Roman  Empire; 
they  corrupted  and  stole  and  rotted  and  perverted 
until  the  thing  stank  and  was  nothing  but  the 
putrid  shell  of  carrion.  Since  their  day  all  the 
men  that  have  tried  to  supply  Russia  with  any 
form  of  government,  whether  Bolshevic  or  any- 
thing else,  have  been  cursed  and  followed  by  the 
blight  Czarism  left  behind  it.  Whoever  might  be 
at  the  head  of  a  department,  his  subordinates,  or 
most  of  them,  must  of  necessity  be  relics  of  the 
old  days  of  incompetency  and  theft.  No  zeal  or 
industry  could  in  a  month  or  a  year  cope  with  such 
conditions.    Let  a  man  be  as  capable  an  adminis- 

152 


THE  OLD  REGIME  AND  ITS  FRUITAGE 

trator  as  lives,  he  could  not  quickly  displace  all 
of  the  left-overs  of  the  old  system ;  he  could  not 
readily  root  up  all  the  old  methods  and  supply 
new.  But  from  that  very  fact,  in  the  railroad  de- 
partment, for  one  example,  came,  as  we  are  still 
to  see,  a  black  flood  of  troubles  and  causes  that 
made  any  stable  government  in  Russia  for  a  time 
impossible. 

Into  this  situation  stepped  once  more  that  ubi- 
quitous pest,  the  German  propaganda.  For  its 
work  in  disorganizing  machinery  and  spreading 
discontent  it  was  supplied  with  funds  free  of  ex- 
pense to  itself.  I  was  never  able  to  satisfy  my- 
self as  to  the  truth  of  the  story  that  the  plates  of 
the  Russian  paper  ruble  were  in  Germany,  but 
there  was  no  doubt  that  Germany  was  sending 
into  Russia  counterfeit  paper  money  that  could 
not  be  detected  from  the  genuine.  Bales  of  this 
medium  arrived  and  with  it  Germany  paid  her 
spies  and  agents  and  bribed  her  way  to  success. 
Russia  was  at  that  time  on  a  paper  basis.  All 
gold  disappeared  with  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
all  silver  soon  followed  it,  even  copper  small 
coins  became  scarce  and  imprints  of  postage 
stamps  must  be  issued  to  enable  change  to  be 
made.    The  ruble  had  sunk  to  half  of  its  normal 

153 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

value.  At  such  a  time  the  art  of  the  counterfeiter 
was  a  double  advantage  to  Germany.  It  enabled 
her  to  carry  on  free  of  charge  her  tremendous 
underhand  operations  in  Eussia  and  at  the  same 
time  create  trouble  by  lowering  the  value  of  the 
ruble. 

Considering  all  these  conditions,  the  restless  ac- 
tivities of  the  element  that  believed  a  new  epoch 
to  have  dawned  on  earth  with  the  Eussian  Eevolu- 
tion,  the  mental  attitude  of  a  nation  weary  of  war, 
it  is  not  strange  that  the  Provisional  Government 
fell  and  for  a  time  another  order  of  mind  secured 
the  control  of  Eussia.  But  besides  all  these  fac- 
tors there  was  still  another  that  in  any  country 
and  among  any  people  at  any  time  would  have 
insured  trouble,  and  that,  being  one  of  the  pro- 
found causes  of  the  collapse  of  Eussia  on  the 
battle  front,  we  are  to  treat  next. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD  AND  WHAT 
CAME  OF  IT 

One  of  the  ablest  of  the  members  of  the  Pro- 
visional cabinet  of  which  Prince  Luvof  was  prime 
minister  was  M.  Skobeloff ,  Minister  of  Labor.  He 
was  a  civil  engineer,  young,  well-educated  and 
skilful,  and  his  career  had  been  romantic  as  well 
as  exciting  in  the  days  when  he  had  been  a  pro- 
scribed advocate  of  freedom.  On  a  day  in  July, 
1917,  an  American  was  sitting  in  M.  Skobeloff 's 
office,  chatting  with  him  about  the  railroad  situa- 
tion in  Russia,  when  the  minister  turned  abruptly 
and  plumped  upon  the  American  this  somewhat 
startling  question: 

"Will  you  tell  me  what  you  really  think,  per- 
sonally, in  yourself,  about  the  Russian  democracy 
and  its  chances  to  survive?" 

The  American  reflected  for  a  moment  and  said : 

"As  to  the  democratic  spirit  in  Russia,  that  I 
believe  to  be  at  least  as  fine,  as  high  and  as  gen- 
uine as  any  I  have  ever  found  anywhere  in  this 
world,  of  which  I  have  seen  much. 

155 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

"But  as  to  whether  it  is  likely  to  survive  as  it 
is  in  the  existing  conditions,  if  you  will  look  down 
that  street  you  will  see  the  answer." 

He  pointed  to  where  before  a  baker *s  shop  stood 
in  the  street  a  long  line  of  patient  women. 

M.  Skobeloff  looked  at  his  visitor  inquiringly. 
"I  mean  this,"  said  the  American.  "It  is  now 
summer  and  to  stand  there  for  hours  in  that  line 
is  merely  irksome  and  tedious.  When  winter 
comes  it  will  be  a  different  matter.  People  that 
overthrew  the  monarchy  may  be  willing  so  long 
as  the  weather  is  good  to  endure  another  govern- 
ment that  fails  to  relieve  their  distress,  but  they 
will  not  endure  it  when  they  must  stand  for  hours 
in  the  sleet,  snow  and  bitter  winds  that  you  have 
in  winter.  More  especially  when  they  know  that 
there  is  food  in  the  country  and  they  suffer  only 
from  a  failure  to  distribute  it.  In  other  words, 
the  life  of  the  present  system  of  government  here 
depends  upon  the  rehabilitation  of  your  railroads. 
If  you  do  not  secure  that  you  will  have  another 
revolution  when  the  snow  begins  to  fall." 

The  American  was  perfectly  right.  Soon  after 
the  storm  of  the  Revolution  had  subsided  it  was 
evident  that  whether  Russia  was  to  have  at 
once  a  stable  and  efficient  government  or  was  to 

156 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

go  through  another  period  of  stress  and  tempest, 
lasting  no  one  could  say  how  long,  depended  then 
upon  two  things,  the  United  States  and  a  supply 
of  box  cars. 

As  to  the  United  States,  the  question  was 
whether  it  would  understand  and  sympathize  with 
the  efforts  of  a  newly  emancipated  people  strug- 
gling to  erect  a  democracy,  and  as  to  the  box  cars, 
it  was  whether  a  considerable  part  of  the  Russian 
people  was  to  have  anything  to  eat. 

Doubt  as  to  the  United  States  did  not  last  long. 
The  American  Government  showed  that  it  could 
sympathize  with  such  a  situation  and  much  of  the 
American  press  showed  that  it  could  not — or  did 
not.  For  every  Russian  that  knew  of  the  Govern- 
ment's sympathy  a  hundred  knew  of  the  hostility 
of  the  press  and  never  heard  the  news  about  the 
Government;  so  to  a  great  extent  that  issue  went 
wrong. 

The  other  hung  for  a  time  in  the  balance,  and 
again  it  was  the  United  States  that  was  a  consid- 
erable, though  in  the  end  a  defeated,  factor  in  the 
effort  to  solve  a  difficult  problem. 

A  bread  line,  as  I  have  intimated,  is  not  at  best 
a  pretty  thing  nor  any  indication  of  strength.  In 
Petrograd  and  Moscow  that  summer  we  had  worse 

157 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

than  bread  lines;  we  had  meat  lines,  vegetable 
lines,  milk  lines,  shoe  lines ;  almost  everything  the 
people  required  they  must  get  by  standing  in  line 
and  waiting  for  fixed  amounts  of  the  commodity 
to  be  doled  out  upon  a  showing  of  cards. 

Suppose  a  cold  rain  to  be  falling,  fifty  women, 
old  men  and  children,  standing  there  without  pro- 
tection, soaked  and  dripping,  shivering  in  a  bitter 
wind — the  spectacle  is  not  exhilarating.  The 
women  have  cloths  folded  over  their  heads  and 
tied  under  their  chins;  they  have  garments  that 
seem  to  be  thin  and  wraps  that  are  surely  inade- 
quate. They  stand  there  patiently,  head  cloths 
streaming  icy  drops  like  a  winter's  eaves,  soppy 
wraps  clinging  to  their  forms — no,  it  is  not  pleas- 
ant. It  was  not  pleasant  even  in  the  milder  days 
of  September.  With  the  snows  and  frosts  of 
November  it  became  plainly  fraught  with  the 
perils  the  American  had  pointed  out.  The  suffer- 
ing was  keen  and  was  unnecessary. 

Bread  by  ticket,  meat  by  ticket,  fish  by  ticket, 
milk  by  ticket,  potatoes  by  ticket,  a  handful  at  a 
time.  It  was  as  if  Russia  were  starving  and  all 
the  population  must  go  on  rations  and  save  every 
scrap.  It  was  as  if  the  nation  were  in  a  state  of 
siege  and  blockade,  the  enemy  surrounding  her 

158 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

and  all  her  ports  closed  so  that  she  might  be  cowed 
and  subdued  by  gaunt  famine. 

Was  it  so  with  Russia,  then?  Not  at  all.  There 
was  no  food  shortage  in  Russia;  taking  her  alto- 
gether she  had  an  abundance  of  food.  There  was 
no  blockade  of  her  food  supplies ;  she  fed  herself 
and  more.  In  that  same  summer  of  1917  she  was 
able  to  send  great  quantities  of  wheat  from  Arch- 
angel to  England. 

In  Petrograd,  Moscow  and  some  other  cities 
bread  was  doled  out  a  crust  at  a  time;  not  far 
away,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  count  distances, 
the  sacked  wheat  stood  by  the  railroad  track  in 
long  piles  as  high  as  a  two-story  house,  some  of 
it  three  years  old.  Meat  on  tickets,  a  pound  at  a 
time;  and  not  so  very  far  away  the  plains  were 
black  with  cattle.  Tool  steel  and  metals  at  fabu- 
lous prices  or  unobtainable;  and  great  quantities 
of  all  of  them  lying  on  side-tracks. 

In  Petrograd  the  prices  of  all  necessaries  were 
so  high  that  poor  people  looked  upon  them  with 
despair.  Forty-eight  hours  east  of  Petrograd  no 
food  product  was  dearer  than  before  the  war  and 
there  was  a  surplusage  of  all  staples. 

Here  are  some  comparative  prices  I  compiled 
while  I  was  in  Petrograd : 

159 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

July,  1914    July,  1917 

Bread,  a  pound 1  cent  5  cents 

Meat  (av.,  retail)  lb 9     "  45     " 

Butter,  a  pound 25     "  65    " 

Potatoes,  a  pound 1     "  6     " 

Eggs,  a  dozen 12    "  30     " 

Lemons,  a  dozen 30    "  $1.44 

Nuts,  a  pound 11     "  40     " 

Sardines,  a  box 5    "  20    " 

Radishes,  small,  10 2%    "  20    " 

A  pair  of  shoes  that  would  formerly  cost  7 
rubles  ($3.50)  now  cost  $25.  For  such  a  suit  as 
one  formerly  paid  $9  the  price  was  now  $60,  and 
one  must  wait  weeks  to  get  it  made.  Such  shirts 
as  used  to  cost  60  cents  now  cost  $3.  Apples  were 
13  cents  each  and  oranges  20.  Go  four  hundred 
miles  and  you  would  find  most  of  these  things 
abundant  and  cheap. 

Russia  was  not  starving;  Petrograd  and  Mos- 
cow were  pinched  for  food,  not  because  food  was 
really  scarce  but  because  they  could  not  get  at  it. 
The  railroad  system  had  broken  down. 

The  world  ought  never  to  forget  this,  its  most 
memorable  demonstration  of  what  transportation 
is  to  its  modern  civilization.  It  ought  never  to 
forget  hereafter  that  transportation  is  its  arterial 
and  circulatory  system;  that  if  anything  dams 
these  arteries  the  body  begins  to  shrivel  and  fall 
away  to  death. 

160 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

The  circulatory  system  of  Russia  was  not  only 
dammed,  it  was  atrophied  and  maimed,  with  the 
result  that  the  Government  could  not  perform  its 
functions  and  people  could  not  get  enough  to  eat. 
The  right  aorta  of  that  system  is  the  great  Trans- 
Siberian  Railroad,  the  greatest  trunk-line  in  the 
world.  When  I  was  in  Russia  this  vital  artery 
was  in  a  state  partly  paralyzed  and  partly  border- 
ing on  collapse,  and  when  you  have  learned  what 
ailed  it  you  will  have  learned  what  it  was  that 
next  to  German  propaganda  and  Allied  misplays 
brought  about  the  Russian  downfall. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  port  of  Vladivostok, 
which  I  believe  presented  in  1917  the  most  ex- 
traordinary spectacle  of  the  kind  ever  known  to 
man.  When  I  was  there  nearly  800,000  tons  of 
freight  were  piled  up  in  and  about  the  place. 
Some  of  it  had  been  there  for  years  and  was 
rotting. 

It  was  a  sight  to  be  remembered.  The  hills 
about  the  handsome  harbor  were  covered  with 
great  tarpaulined  stacks  of  cotton  bales,  most  of 
them  three  years  in  that  position.  There  it  lay 
and  doubtfully  adorned  the  landscape,  while  Rus- 
sia badly  needed  cotton.  On  the  shore  were  25,000 
tons  of  automobile  trucks  and  parts,  while  Russia 

161 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

badly  needed  automobile  trucks  and  parts.  Just 
outside  the  town  was  a  bewildering  pile  of  car- 
wheels,  beautifully  arranged  in  a  pyramid  I  should 
say  400  feet  long,  100  feet  wide  and  14  feet  high, 
and  Eussia  badly  needed  car-wheels.  Next  to  this 
was  a  pile  of  car-axles,  also  artistically  arranged, 
thousands  of  car-axles  peacefully  reposing,  while 
Russia  badly  needed  car-axles. 

Around  the  shores  of  the  harbor  were  great 
stacks  of  munitions  of  all  kinds,  and  Russia  badly 
needed  munitions;  thousands  of  guns,  and  she 
needed  guns ;  millions  of  cartridges,  and  she  need- 
ed cartridges;  tons  of  textiles,  tool  steel,  copper, 
hospital  supplies,  machines,  and  she  badly  needed 
all  these  things. 

Day  after  day  the  steamers  from  Japan  and  the 
United  States  had  been  bringing  such  commodities 
and  depositing  them  upon  the  fringes  of  the  bay. 
Warehouse  after  warehouse  had  been  built  to  hold 
them  and  still  they  came  faster  than  shelter  could 
be  provided.  Streets  near  the  wharves  were  lined 
with  goods  so  long  exposed  to  the  weather  that  the 
packing-cases  had  turned  black  and  were  begin- 
ning to  break  open. 

All  because  the  railroad  system  had  broken 
down. 

162 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

At  that  time  Russia  was  facing  a  coal  shortage 
so  grave  that  the  factories  were  likely  to  close  for 
lack  of  fuel.  Yet  there  is  no  end  of  coal  in  Rus- 
sia; she  has  some  of  the  largest  deposits  in  the 
world.  At  one  place  on  the  Trans-Siberian  Rail- 
road I  have  seen  a  cut  driven  into  a  solid  mass  of 
coal,  a  side-track  in  the  cut,  a  train  of  gondola 
cars  on  the  side-track  and  men  standing  on  the 
vein  and  pitching  coal  straight  into  the  cars.  I 
do  not  believe  you  can  find  such  a  spectacle  any- 
where else  on  this  globe.  The  coal  lay  in  a  solid 
black  mass,  not  more  than  four  feet  under  the 
surface ;  scrape  off  a  little  clay  and  there  was  the 
deposit  as  black  as  your  hat.  Mining  there  could 
be  done  with  a  scoop  shovel.  And  yet  Petrograd 
and  Moscow  were  short  of  coal.  The  railroad 
system  had  broken  down. 

Had  broken  down,  or  had  been  broken  down; 
that  is  the  better  phrase.  It  had  gone  far  to  ruin 
partly  because  thieves  and  blunderers  at  Petro- 
grad had  been  trying  to  operate  in  the  Twentieth 
Century  A.D.  a  form  of  government  that  would 
have  been  appropriate  for  the  First,  or  there- 
about, but  chiefly  because  the  inside  had  been 
stolen  out  of  the  system. 

For  years  the  Imperial  Government  of  Russia 
163 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

had  been  the  wildest  carnival  of  graft,  loot,  plun- 
der and  corruption  ever  seen  in  this  world.  Un- 
scrupulous men  went  into  the  national  treasury 
with  grapples  and  dredges  and  came  out  loaded 
down  with  money  that  did  not  belong  to  them.  It 
is  a  story  without  a  parallel.  The  dull,  incapable 
little  Czar  sat  on  his  throne  and  the  thieves  walked 
in  and  out  of  the  money-box  before  his  eyes  and 
he  did  not  know  it;  they  could  have  stolen  the 
watch  out  of  his  pocket  or  anything  else  he  had 
except  his  mustache,  without  bringing  him  to  a 
state  of  mental  alertness. 

Everybody  was  supposed  to  thieve;  some  men 
kept  straight,  but  they  were  regarded  as  eccen- 
trics and  cranks,  and  were  seldom  recognized  in 
the  best  circles.  A  book  on  Russian  graft  would 
be  a  priceless  addition  to  the  store  of  human 
knowledge.  It  would  include  one  of  the  most  stu- 
pendous tragedies  ever  known,  for  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  men  are  now  in  their  graves  solely 
because  the  arms  with  which  they  should  have 
been  equipped  were  stolen  by  Eussian  grafters. 
Some  adequate  punishment  may  exist  for  the  Gov- 
ernment officers  that  sent  men  into  the  battle-line 
armed  with  wooden  sticks  instead  of  rifles,  but  it 
cannot  be  in  this  world. 

164 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

Among"  the  things  that  went  to  wreck  in  those 
days  of  plunder  was  the  Trans-Siberian.  No  part 
of  the  breakdown  of  the  railroad  system  is  to  be 
charged  to  the  Provisional  or  Revolutionary  Gov- 
ernment. I  ought  to  make  that  clear.  The  democ- 
racy inherited  all  of  its  railroad  troubles.  It 
came  in  to  find  about  one-third  of  enough  equip- 
ment and  no  way  to  get  more  quickly,  and  it  stag- 
gered under  that  problem  to  the  end.  The  money 
that  should  have  gone  into  equipment  had  been 
grabbed  by  the  grafters. 

Even  before  the  war  broke,  the  supply  of  loco- 
motives and  cars  was  far  below  par.  War  clear- 
age  makes  tremendous  drains  upon  railroads. 
Millions  of  troops  must  be  transported,  millions 
of  tons  of  supplies  are  required  to  keep  the  troops 
in  form.  On  every  front  the  entire  army  is  moved 
backward  and  forward  about  every  two  weeks. 

The  cars  and  locomotives  that  were  swept  off 
for  this  service  in  Russia  left  the  rest  of  the  sys- 
tem bare. 

I  believe  the  real  story  of  the  Trans-Siberian 
excels  any  other  chapter  in  railroad  history.  I 
have  never  seen  it  in  print,  but  I  will  try  to  give 
an  outline  of  it  here,  for  the  sake  of  the  light  it 

165 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

will  throw  on  the  Russian  problem,  although  I 
think  it  is  also  a  good  yarn  on  its  own  account. 

It  is  the  longest  of  railroads,  6,205  miles  from 
end  to  end.  It  was  born  in  the  brain  of  an  Ameri- 
can, and  by  a  most  extraordinary  turn  in  the 
whirligig  of  fate  it  was  Americans  that  in  the 
crisis  of  1917  alone  appeared  to  know  how  to  keep 
it  from  tottering  to  its  fall.  The  first  suggestion 
of  it  was  made  in  1857  to  the  then  Czar,  Nicholas  I, 
by  an  American  engineer.  He  pointed  out  that 
the  whole  vast  territory  of  Russia  in  Asia,  a  realm 
known  to  have  the  possibilities  of  wealth  without 
limit,  would  always  be  undeveloped  and  practical- 
ly worthless  until  it  had  rail  connection  with  the 
sea,  and  he  urged  the  building  of  a  line  across 
Siberia  to  Vladivostok. 

In  the  reign  of  Alexander  II  the  plan  slept  while 
that  unfortunate  Romanoff  tried  to  meet  the  rising 
tide  of  intelligence  and  revolution  by  instituting 
reforms.  The  next  Czar,  Alexander  III,  brought 
it  out  of  its  retirement  and  in  1891  decreed  it,  ap- 
pointing his  son  Nicholas,  the  last  of  the  Czars, 
to  begin  the  work  at  Vladivostok.  Accordingly 
on  May  19, 1891,  the  then  Crown  Prince  appeared 
at  Vladivostok  pushing  a  wheelbarrow,  and  amid 
elaborate  ceremonies  and  blessed  by  the  Church, 

166 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

lie  dug  the  first  spadeful  of  earth  on  the  Trans- 
Siberian,  easily  the  most  useful  thing  he  ever  did. 

At  that  time  a  railroad  was  already  built  from 
St.  Petersburg  to  the  Volga  River  and  a  little 
beyond.  The  rest  was  completed,  in  a  fashion,  in 
eleven  years,  which  was  good  speed  when  one  re- 
members the  long  and  terrific  Siberian  winters. 
By  1902  one  could  get  from  St.  Petersburg  to 
Vladivostok,  crossing  Lake  Baikal  on  a  steamboat 
and  journeying  on  another  steamboat  400  miles 
down  the  Amur  River.  The  rest  one  did  on  the 
new  railroad. 

Nothing  was  now  lacking  to  make  a  complete 
and  operated  line  from  Petrograd  to  Mukden  and 
Manchuria  except  the  link  around  Lake  Baikal, 
and  Russian  engineers  were  at  work  upon  that. 
Japan  saw  that  the  time  had  come  to  strike;  if 
she  waited  longer  Russia  would  have  her  high- 
way in  shape  for  the  ready  passage  of  troops  to 
the  east ;  and  Japan  let  go  at  Port  Arthur,  begin- 
ning the  war.  It  was  Lake  Baikal  that  beat  the 
Russian  armies  and  gave  the  victory  to  Japan. 

The  lake  is  called  "Holy,"  but  in  no  such  terms 
did  the  railroad  people  refer  to  it  when  they  were 
trying  to  get  troops  and  munitions  across  it.  Ac- 
cording to  the  best  surveys  it  has  a  length  of  375 

167 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

miles,  is  50  miles  wide  and  in  some  places  3,000 
feet  deep.  It  is  walled  around  with  sheer  moun- 
tains, sometimes  4,500  feet  above  the  surface  of 
the  lake.  The  rock  is  unusually  hard,  and  that  is 
where  the  trouble  arose.  Yet  the  conformation 
of  the  country  is  such  that  the  only  feasible  route 
was  by  this  lake.  To  get  around  it  required  miles 
of  tunnels  through  the  hard  rock.  Meantime,  the 
line  reached  the  shore  of  the  lake  on  the  west  and 
left  it  at  about  the  southeast  corner,  and  passen- 
gers and  freight  were  ferried  between  the  two 
points. 

This  was  a  highly  picturesque  performance,  but 
not  exactly  suited  to  the  requirements  of  war.  The 
lake  is  one  of  the  coldest  in  the  world.  It  freezes 
over  in  November  and  remains  frozen  until  well 
into  May,  sometimes  to  the  first  of  June.  Ice  nine 
feet  thick  is  one  of  its  pleasing  products ;  another 
is  a  particularly  vicious  and  unreasonable  kind  of 
summer  storm.  The  thick  ice  is  normal ;  the  tem- 
perature gets  down  to  50°  and  60°  below  zero 
and  40°  is  considered  balmy.  But  the  summer 
storm,  which  is  sudden  and  angry,  is  just  per- 
versity and  condemned  by  all  right-minded  men. 

So  long  as  the  lake  was  open  the  ferryboats  ran 
back  and  forth  with  much  regularity,  but  winter 

168 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

soon  stopped  them.  The  Russian  Government  sent 
one  of  its  admirals  to  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  Michigan, 
to  see  how  the  far-famed  ice-breaker  was  worked 
there.  The  Americans  received  him  with  glad- 
ness and  showed  him  everything,  including  the 
plans  of  the  ice-breaker.  These  he  wanted  to  bor- 
row, and  the  Americans  let  him  have  them.  He 
took  them  to  England,  where  a  boat  was  built  on 
the  exact  lines  of  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie  breaker, 
but  the  Americans,  according  to  report,  were  never 
able  to  get  their  plans  back. 

The  ice-breaker  is  a  vessel  of  great  weight  and 
strength,  with  an  overhanging  bow  and  a  power- 
ful breaking  wheel  forward,  worked  with  a  sep- 
arate engine.  It  slides  upon  the  ice  and  breaks  it 
down  by  its  weight,  while  the  whirling  wheel 
smashes  and  grinds.  It  will  break  ice  thirty-six 
inches  thick. 

So  long  as  possible  the  ice-breaker  would  keep 
open  a  lane  of  communication  between  the  two 
shores,  and  the  troops  and  their  supplies  would 
move  that  way.  When  the  frost  began  to  manu- 
facture the  ice  faster  than  the  breaker  could  han- 
dle it,  she  was  laid  up  and  the  Government  put 
down  rails  across  the  lake  and  hauled  cars  across 
with  horses  and  oxen. 

169 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

But  these  were  only  freight-cars.  For  reasons 
of  excessive  caution  the  authorities  would  never 
risk  passenger-cars  in  that  way.  The  ice  was 
more  than  four  feet  thick  and  probably  would  have 
held  a  train  of  Pullmans,  but  the  authorities  would 
take  no  chances  on  it.  All  passengers  were  trans- 
ferred across  the  lake  on  sledges. 

The  course  was  diagonal  and  about  sixty  miles 
long.  The  passengers  reached  the  shore  of  the 
lake  in  the  morning,  were  packed  into  sleighs  and 
covered  with  furs  until  not  even  the  tip  of  a  nose 
was  visible,  and  away  they  went  over  the  ice,  one 
sleigh  and  one  harum-scarum  driver  for  each  pas- 
senger. To  see  anything  of  the  journey  so  bundled 
in  furs  was  of  course  impossible,  but  the  precau- 
tion was  wise  on  more  than  one  account.  There 
were  cracks  in  the  ice  a  foot  wide  that  the  sleigh 
glided  over  and  the  horses  missed,  and  competent 
authorities  tell  me  that  to  look  down  upon  them 
as  one  swept  along  was  no  real  enjoyment,  because 
they  went  all  the  way  to  the  water.  It  took  two 
hours  to  get  half-way  across,  and  there  one 
stopped  and  had  luncheon,  with  much  hot  tea,  be- 
fore one  did  the  rest. 

This  was  the  arrangement  for  travelers,  please 
note.     The  soldiers  fared  with  no  such  luxury. 

170 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

When  they  reached  the  lake  they  marched  upon 
the  ice  and  footed  it  across.  If  one  froze  or 
dropped  from  weariness,  what  odds?  'Twas  but 
a  beast  that  was  gone.  Here  as  everywhere  else 
the  attitude  of  the  Government  to  its  soldiers 
was  that  they  were  next  below  dogs,  though  at  a 
long  distance.  Sometimes  in  a  temperature  of 
60°  below  zero  soldiers  were  marched  upon  thai 
ice.  Luckily  there  was  never  any  wind;  there 
never  is  around  that  lake  in  winter,  but  wind  or 
no  wind  the  trip  was  nothing  in  the  way  of  a  hol- 
iday jaunt. 

Even  Russian  soldiers  could  not  march  sixty 
miles  a  day,  so  the  Government  erected  a  series 
of  shelters  in  the  middle  of  the  lake  and  presently 
had  a  city  built  there  on  the  ice.  There  was  for 
first-class  passengers  a  fair  hotel,  where  they  had 
their  luncheons  and  could  stay  all  night  if  they 
wished;  and  for  the  soldiers  scores  of  huts,  regu- 
larly laid  out  in  streets,  a  variety  of  cheap  shops, 
and  even  places  devoted  to  amusement  and  rum. 
The  place  was  lighted  with  electric  lights  and 
presented  at  night  as  gay  an  appearance  as  was 
possible  in  any  city  squatted  upon  ice  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  coldest  lake  in  Christendom. 

When  spring  came  the  Government  took  its 
171 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

hotel,  stores  and  huts  apart,  put  them  away  on 
shore  and  started  the  ice-breaker  upon  its  labors. 
Very  often,  even  so  late  as  May,  it  would  be  un- 
able to  get  more  than  a  mile  from  the  shore. 
Whereupon  the  gangplank  would  be  run  out,  the 
passengers  would  disembark  upon  the  ice,  stow 
themselves  in  sleighs  that  were  carried  on  board 
for  the  purpose,  and  be  whisked  away  toward  the 
opposite  shore.  It  was  the  romance  of  arctic 
travel. 

Meantime,  the  Japanese  continued  to  beat  the 
Russian  troops  as  fast  as  they  stepped  off  the 
train  and  the  Eussian  Government  to  make  fran- 
tic efforts  to  get  a  track  laid  around  the  lake  be- 
fore the  Japanese  should  be  too  decisively  the 
victors.  The  Japanese  won  at  this  game  and  Eus- 
sia  had  to  suffer  the  loss  of  that  part  of  the  rail- 
road in  Chinese  territory  that  she  had  built  to 
carry  through  her  connection  to  Pekin  and  the 
south.  Japan  took  over  that  estimable  slice  of 
Eussian  wealth  and  thereafter  looked  straight  into 
Eussia's  back  windows,  where  she  is  looking  to- 
day. 

The  Czar's  Government  always  arrived  every- 
where about  a  year  and  a  half  behind  the  schedule. 
When  the  Baikal  lake  ferry  had  thoroughly  beaten 

172 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

the  Russian  armies  the  Government  succeeded  in 
eliminating  it.  The  road  around  the  lake  was 
completed  and  thereafter  the  trains  rolled  from 
St.  Petersburg  to  Vladivostok,  as  they  were  roll- 
ing in  1917. 

Truth  compels  me  to  say  much  of  it  was  rather 
to  be  described  as  deliberate  progression  than  as 
railroad  travel  by  our  definitions.  The  weekly 
express  did  the  6,000  miles  in  twelve  days ;  other 
trains  in  from  eighteen  to  twenty-two.  Through 
trains,  first-class  and  second-class,  were  comfort- 
able, but  the  slow  trains  were  a  trial  to  the  West- 
ern nerves,  there  is  no  doubt  of  that.  One  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  road's  operations,  and  they  were 
many  and  dark,  was  the  long  stops  made  at  every 
considerable  station.  This  was  true  even  of  the 
express  trains;  of  others  it  might  be  said  that 
they  seemed  not  so  much  to  be  stopping  as  to  have 
taken  root.  I  was  never  able  to  learn  the  real 
reason  for  these  long  delays,  if  they  had  any.  For 
a  leisurely  traveler  of  an  inquiring  mind  they 
offered  this  advantage,  that  they  enabled  him  to 
explore  most  of  the  considerable  towns  along  the 
route,  but  I  judged  from  their  remarks  none  of 
the  travelers  I  met  were  of  this  order. 

It  is  a  strange  fact  and  one  I  cannot  attempt  to 
173 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

explain,  but  while  this  Czar's  bungling  govern- 
ment could  no  more  operate  a  railroad  than  I 
could  operate  a  theological  seminary,  in  building 
a  railroad  it  showed  invariably  a  most  excellent 
performance.  There  is  no  better-constructed  rail- 
road in  the  world,  all  things  considered,  than  the 
Trans-Siberian.  In  one  respect  it  surpasses  all 
others,  and  that  is  in  its  bridges.  The  long  steel 
bridges  over  the  Volga,  the  Yenesei  and  other 
rivers  amaze  every  traveler  and,  I  am  told,  im- 
press every  engineer. 

The  roadbed  is  dirt  ballasted,  but  wonderfully 
maintained.  One  thing  I  noticed  particularly  was 
the  care  with  which  drainage  is  provided.  Deep 
ditches  on  both  sides  of  the  track  must  keep  the 
roadbed  dry  at  all  times  and  largely  immune 
against  the  action  of  frosts.  The  ties  average 
twice  the  size  of  ours  and  are  always  in  first-class 
condition.  I  examined  thousands  of  them  on  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  line  and  never  found  one  that 
showed  any  sign  of  decay.  When  you  compare 
that  condition  with  an  average  American  railroad, 
where  half  the  ties  are  punk  and  you  can  pull  the 
spikes  with  your  fingers,  the  difference — so  long 
as  you  are  traveling  in  Siberia — is  refreshing.  It 
has  a  somewhat  different  effect  upon  you  when 

174 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

you  are  traveling  in  America  and  happen  to  think 
of  our  accident  record.  Rails  on  the  Trans- 
Siberian  weigh  75  pounds  to  the  yard,  which  is 
heavy  enough  for  the  kind  of  traffic  they  carry. 
Contrary  to  the  general  belief  in  this  country,  it 
is  not  a  single-track  road.  About  two-thirds  of  it 
was  double-tracked  at  the  time  I  rode  over  it. 
The  line  around  Lake  Baikal,  for  instance,  is  a  re- 
markably fine  specimen  of  double-track  construc- 
tion, much  of  the  way  through  tunnels.  Of  course 
the  whole  system  should  be  double-tracked  and 
would  be  if  the  Czar 's  Government  had  been  either 
competent  or  honest.  Among  the  curiosities  of 
the  World's  Unpremeditated  Exposition  of 
Stranded  Freight  at  Vladivostok  were  800  miles 
of  steel  rails  intended  to  carry  on  the  double- 
tracking  work.  They  had  lain  there  so  long  that 
according  to  an  American  engineer  they  had  begun 
to  sprout.  Some  of  the  line  had  long  been  graded 
and  ready  for  them,  but  there  they  lay.  If  they 
could  have  been  put  into  place  they  would  have 
relieved  greatly  the  congestion  of  the  road  and 
helped  thus  to  clear  the  economic  clouds  gather- 
ing to  the  west.  But  the  rails  could  not  have  been 
released  unless  the  whole  problem  of  the  choked 
harbor  of  Vladivostok  were  solved.     There  was 

175 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

no  way  to  solve  that  problem  except  by  first  of  all 
making  Vladivostok  an  American  port  and  to  that 
there  were  believed  to  be  great  obstacles. 

Meantime  the  road  was  doing  only  one-third  of 
its  normal  carrying  capacity  and  the  hills  and 
harbor  shores  continued  to  be  covered  with  piled 
up  bales  and  packing  cases.  Freight  trains  went 
out  of  Vladivostok  with  ten  and  twelve  cars  when 
they  should  have  carried  thirty  or  forty.  The 
main  reason  for  the  deficiency  was  the  shortage  of 
locomotives  and  cars  brought  about  by  the  cor- 
rupt old  administration;  but  there  was  another 
reason  in  the  fact  that  the  old  administration  was 
stupid  as  well  as  crooked  and  had  fastened  upon 
the  enterprise  methods  that  would  have  hobbled 
any  railroad. 

We  in  this  country  build  our  railroads  rottenly 
and  finance  them  thievishly  but  operate  them  mar- 
velously.  Russia  built  its  railroads  marvelously, 
plundered  them  magnificently  and  then  could  not 
operate  them  at  all.  Any  man  that  had  been  three 
months  in  the  operating  department  of  any  Amer- 
ican railroad  could  have  told  the  Russian  adminis- 
tration that  its  system  for  the  Trans-Siberian 
would  not  work. 

The  main  line,  Petrograd  to  Vladivostok,  is  sep- 
176 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

arated  into  seven  or  eight  grand  divisions,  each 
with  its  own  chief  and  staff  constituting  a  kind  of 
independent  sovereignty.  There  is  the  Ural,  the 
Western  Siberian,  the  Mid-Siberian,  the  Eastern 
Siberian,  the  Trans-Baikal,  the  Vladivostok,  and 
others,  to  say  nothing  of  the  line  through  Man- 
churia, which  is  controlled  by  the  Eastern  China 
Railroad  Company,  a  corporation  that  the  govern- 
ment owns. 

Each  of  these  grand  divisions  is  responsible  to 
the  national  railroad  department,  but  is  more  or 
less  jealous  of  the  other  divisions  and  stands  upon 
its  dignity  as  an  independent  kingdom.  Suppose 
a  freight-car  to  pass  out  of  the  Vladivostok  divi- 
sion and  be  lost.  The  commander  of  the  Vladi- 
vostok line  would  indite  a  diplomatic  communica- 
tion of  inquiry  to  the  commander  of  the  Eastern 
Siberian  division  and  in  the  course  of  two  or  three 
months,  if  he  thought  it  worth  while,  the  com- 
mander of  the  Eastern  Siberian  would  make  a 
diplomatic  response  that  he  knew  nothing  about 
the  matter.  Similar  diplomacy  would  then  be  em- 
ployed to  discover  if  the  car  were  on  the  Mid- 
Siberian,  or  the  Western  Siberian,  and  finally  in 
the  course  of  two  or  three  years  diplomacy  might 

177 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

discover  the  car  or  it  might  not,  and  meantime  the 
shipper  could  tear  his  hair  in  vain. 

Cooperation  between  the  divisions  was  lame. 
Some  chiefs  used  to  try  to  evade  repair  charges 
by  loading  for  another  division  the  decrepit  cars 
that  were  reasonably  sure  to  break  down.  "Whole 
trains  of  freight  used  to  be  held  up  for  weeks  with- 
out visible  cause.  When  freight  became  congested 
there  was  no  dominant  central  control  to  come  in 
with  the  voice  of  authority  and  compel  the  tangle 
to  be  untied.  Some  of  the  division  chiefs  were 
solemn  old  boys  that  had  graduated  out  of  the 
army  and  existed  apparently  to  move  about  in  an 
atmosphere  of  antique  and  ponderous  ceremony, 
and  he  that  wished  to  obtain  an  interview  with  one 
of  them  must  make  motions  like  a  man  about  to  be 
presented  at  court.  And  some  seemed  not  to  care 
for  the  work  in  hand,  but  were  firmly  resolved  to 
miss  no  pleasure  as  they  went  along  and  kept 
that  resolution  faultlessly,  being  one  of  the  best 
things  they  did. 

The  whole  concern  was  run  as  everything  else 
was  run  under  Czarism,  in  a  way  forcibly  to  re- 
mind one  of  the  way  the  old  woman  kept  tavern. 
Since  the  war  broke  out  I  have  listened  to  much 
learned  discourse  concerning  the  superior  effi- 

178 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

ciency  of  the  autocratic  form  of  government. 
After  a  fair  view  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  autoc- 
racies and  its  works,  that  alleged  superiority 
seems  to  me  but  of  the  stuff  dreams  are  made  of. 

Except  only  as  to  the  machinery  of  terrorism, 
never  was  a  government  in  this  world  more  abso- 
lutely inefficient  and  incompetent  than  the  old 
Government  of  Russia. 

The  run  divisions  on  the  Trans-Siberian  were 
about  forty  miles  each.  That  is,  an  engineer 
started  from  Vladivostok,  ran  forty  miles  and 
stopped,  he  and  his  locomotive.  The  two  then 
waited  for  a  train  coming  from  the  other  direc- 
tion that  they  might  haul  it  back  to  Vladivostok. 
There  might  not  be  such  a  train  for  twenty-four 
hours  or  thirty-six.  Until  then  locomotive  and 
engineer  were  out  of  commission. 

This  took  about  35  per  cent  from  the  efficiency 
of  what  locomotives  the  road  had,  which  were  too 
few  anyway. 

Then  there  was  no  train-despatching.  I  think 
I  see  some  American  railroad  man  clutching  the 
air  in  shocked  protest  at  the  statement,  but  it  re- 
cords fact.  There  was  no  train-despatching,  or 
nothing  that  justly  could  be  called  by  that  name. 
Eleven  telegraph  wires  ran  by  the  side  of  the 

179 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

track  all  the  way  from  Petrograd  to  Vladivostok, 
but  they  seemed  from  what  I  was  told  to  have  a 
function  chiefly  ornamental.  A  train  started  out 
and  to  its  destination  was  entrusted  to  the  care  of 
Providence,  assisted  possibly  by  the  ikons  with 
which  it  might  be  furnished.  If  it  reached  a  pass- 
ing switch  and  the  train  it  was  to  meet  was  not 
there  it  sat  down  and  waited.  Yet  I  am  bound  to 
say  that  accidents  were  very  few,  perhaps  because 
of  a  system  of  blocking  trains  that  had  been  im- 
ported from  England  and  seemed  to  work  very 
well — if  one  were  not  in  a  hurry. 

Not  much  use  was  made  of  the  telegraph,  but 
the  telegraph  lines  were  well  built  and  well  main- 
tained. In  working  them  the  operators  used  the 
old  Morse  recording  instrument  discarded  in  this 
country  sixty-five  years  ago.    It  is  very  slow. 

The  road  passes  through  some  of  the  richest 
wheat  land  in  the  world,  but  there  is  not  an  eleva- 
tor on  its  entire  length.  The  wheat  is  sacked, 
and  the  piles  of  sacks  are  covered  with  Chinese 
matting,  and  in  this  shape  it  lies  by  the  side  of 
the  track  awaiting  shipment.  Often  it  stays  there 
until  it  spoils. 

E.  H.  Harriman  journeyed  over  this  line  about 
1905,  looked  at  the  black  prairie  soil,  saw  what  it 

180 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

would  do  for  wheat,  concluded  that  here  was  the 
world's  future  wheat  farm,  and  laid  his  plans  to 
share  in  the  certain  profits.  He  intended  to  run 
a  line  of  steamships  to  Vladivostok,  to  build  ele- 
vators, to  encourage  immigration,  to  start  the 
wheat  industry  and  to  haul  the  product.  He  died 
before  he  could  realize  his  dream.  Someone  else 
will  see  it  come  true.  Still,  there  is  no  denying  it 
will  be  a  hardy  race  that  will  undertake  to  culti- 
vate this  soil ;  temperature  in  winter  40  degrees,  50 
degrees  and  60  degrees  below.  In  summer  it  is 
likely  to  be  as  bad  the  other  way.  We  had  104 
degrees  in  the  shade  crossing  the  Siberian  prairies 
in  July.  The  climate  can  only  properly  be  de- 
scribed as  brutal.  Winter  lasts  until  well  into 
May;  of  a  sudden  you  awake  to  find  summer  in 
full  swing  and  the  way  the  trees  burst  into  full 
leaf  seems  supernatural.  About  twenty  hours  of 
sunlight  daily  cause  the  magic  transformation. 

But  to  return  to  the  railroad:  There  is  one 
good  thing  about  it— you  slide  over  it  as  a  sleigh 
slides  upon  ice.  There  is  very  little  jar  when  the 
wheels  go  over  the  well-made  joints.  Twelve  days 
of  the  banging  and  hammering  common  on  some 
American  railroads  would  be  insupportable  to  any 
except  a  man  without  nerves ;  twelve  days  on  the 

181 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

Trans-Siberian  are  easy  in  that  respect,  anyway. 

This  judgment  is  not  based  on  experience  con- 
fined to  the  imperial  train,  either.  From  Vladi- 
vostok to  Harbin  we  traveled,  for  a  peculiar  rea- 
son, in  a  train  of  the  ordinary  sleepers  and  they 
sailed  with  the  same  easy  motion  as  the  rest.  The 
reason  we  had  these  cars  and  not  the  imperial 
train  was  because  the  imperial  train  was  delayed 
on  its  way  down  from  Petrograd  to  meet  us.  And 
the  reason  why  it  was  delayed  was  because  as  it 
went  along  the  peasants  recognized  the  Czar's  car 
and  got  the  idea  he  was  in  it  and  making  his  es- 
cape. So  they  compelled  the  train  to  stop  while 
they  searched  it,  and  in  the  search  they  stuck 
bayonets  through  the  curtains  and  broke  open  the 
closets  until  it  was  necessary  to  take  that  car  out 
of  the  train  and  leave  it  behind.  This  little  inci- 
dent again  may  teach  the  uninitiated  how  much 
substance  there  used  to  be  in  those  sweetly  touch- 
ing tales  with  which  we  were  so  liberally  refreshed 
about  the  affection  of  the  people  of  Eussia  for 
their  ruler. 

So  we  did  not  have  the  Czar's  car,  but  from 
Harbin  on  we  had  the  rest  of  the  Imperial  train, 
including  the  car  with  the  drawing-room  where 
he  used  to  play  cards  and  where  he  signed  his 

182 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

abdication.  There  of  an  evening  on  our  trip,  the 
representatives  of  three  democracies  were  wont 
to  sit  comfortably  about  the  table  on  which  with 
some  pen  marks  had  been  compassed  the  downfall 
of  the  greatest  autocracy  on  earth.  Amid  all  the 
triumphs  of  a  bizarre  and  half-insane  luxury  I 
believe  the  thing  that  most  impressed  us  was  the 
Czar's  game  table  in  this  room.  He  must  have 
had  a  liberal,  not  to  say  an  abnormal,  taste  in  the 
matter  of  games.  The  table  was  an  imposing  de- 
vice that  opened  in  the  middle  and  being  opened 
displayed  two  big  boxes,  one  on  each  side.  These 
in  turn  showed  the  makings  of  almost  every  game 
of  chance  known  to  man.  There  was  a  roulette 
wheel,  a  faro  layout,  poker,  fantan,  dominoes, 
backgammon,  bridge,  seven-up,  rouge  et  noire, 
monte,  Italian  and  Spanish  cards,  handbooks  on 
different  games,  and  checkers  and  chess.  There 
were  six  or  eight  different  kinds  of  dice  and  all 
the  facilities  for  the  ancient  and  unhonored  game 
of  craps.  There  were  gaming  devices  that  none 
of  us  could  recognize,  markers,  counters  and 
scores,  from  inspection  of  which  it  appeared  that 
on  the  last  occasion  the  outfit  was  used  some  im- 
perial wayfarer  was  being  badly  stung,  but  wTe 
could  not  make  out  who  it  was. 

183 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

The  rest  of  this  car  was  occupied  by  the  dining- 
room,  with  but  one  table,  and  that  placed  length- 
wise, comfortable  chairs  and  an  elaborate  service. 
The  kitchen  was  still  another  car  and  occupied  the 
whole  of  it.  The  staff  there  included  a  butcher, 
who  used  to  slaughter  for  the  imperial  palate  as 
the  train  went  along,  an  arrangement  rather  de- 
sirable, it  is  to  be  supposed,  in  a  country  where 
there  is  no  refrigeration  and  the  temperature 
climbs  to  104  degrees  in  the  shade.  There  was 
also  a  car  for  the  imperial  baggage  and  two  cars 
filled  with  armed  guards,  one  at  the  head  of  the 
train  and  one  at  the  rear,  and  these  also  were  ad- 
visable lest  the  simple  peasantry  show  in  too 
explosive  a  manner  how  they  really  felt  toward 
their  dear  Little  Father. 

The  Trans-Siberian  journey  is  like  a  visit  to 
the  human  menagerie.  Specimens  of  many 
strange  races  of  men  are  exhibited  first  and  last 
before  your  wondering  eyes.  Queer  Chinese,  still 
wearing  the  queue,  paddle  about  the  harbor  of 
Vladivostok.  The  city  is  oversupplied  with  Jap- 
anese, men,  women,  officers,  and  soldiers.  Feeble 
Koreans,  that  act  as  if  they  were  about  half -fam- 
ished and  have  unhealthy-looking  little  beards, 
swarm  in  the  outskirts.    At  some  of  the  stations 

184 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

there  are  Turks.  Harbin  is  one  of  the  strangest 
places  on  earth  and  a  babel  of  polyglot;  I  think 
every  tongue  is  spoken  there  except  Winch  and 
Scandihoovian.  In  Manchuria  the  stations  swarm 
with  the  Buriats,  a  Mongolian  tribe  that  insist 
upon  wearing  the  clothing  of  their  great-grand- 
fathers and  are  religiously  opposed  to  taking  it 
off  or  having  it  washed.  A  little  further  west,  as 
before  observed,  the  Buriat  is  a  bandit  and  adds 
infinitely  to  the  interest  of  life  by  seizing  towns 
and  kidnaping  travelers. 

At  Udinsk  is  one  end  of  the  great  caravan  trail 
that  stretches  far  down  across  the  Gobi  desert, 
famous  in  song  and  story,  to  Pekin,  and  casts 
upon  this  strand  of  civilization  many  unusual 
species  of  men.  Then  there  are  Kurgesi  and  Hin- 
doos, Big  Russians  and  Little  Russians,  White 
Russians  and  Cossacks.  In  the  summer  of  1917 
there  were  also  thousands  of  Austrian  prisoners 
tramping  about  in  uniforms  all  in  rags,  thousands 
of  German  prisoners  with  their  bright  facings  all 
gone  tarnished,  belted  and  tunicked  peasants,  and 
illimitable  swarms  of  Russian  soldiers,  eating  sun- 
flower seeds  and  not  otherwise  having  visible  oc- 
cupation. 

A  railroad  station  of  ample  size,  concreted  and 
185 


UNCHAINED  BUSSIA 

whitewashed,  the  red  flag  flying  above  it,  the  walls 
adorned  with  red  streamers  bearing  revolutionary 
mottoes,  the  floors  and  platforms  covered  with  the 
husks  of  sunflower  seeds,  soldiers,  peasants, 
Buriats,  bandits  and  what-not  sleeping  in  the 
third-class  waiting-room,  where  with  the  odors  of 
ancient  Buriat  and  of  his  clothes  the  air  defied 
laws  of  physics  and  had  become  a  solid;  soldiers 
sleeping  outside  in  the  shade,  soldiers  in  dense 
masses  walking  up  and  down  oppressed  with  a 
visible  boredom;  all  the  railroad  people  in  uni- 
form caps,  clerks,  hostlers,  yardmen,  everybody; 
the  town  about  half  a  mile  away  and  thrusting 
above  the  white  birches  blue  or  green  church 
domes  shaped  like  turnips  upside  down —  that  was 
a  typical  station  on  the  Trans-Siberian,  where 
there  was  any  town  at  all.  This  was  not  often 
enough  to  grow  tiresome,  I  may  assure  you.  Far 
more  often  there  was  nothing  but  a  small  brown 
wooden  station-house,  a  dwelling  for  the  em- 
ployees, the  switches  for  the  side-track  with  which 
the  trains  pass,  and  the  vast  level  green  prairie 
stretching  away  to  the  horizon,  carpeted  with  ex- 
quisite wild  flowers,  just  as  our  prairies  were 
fifty  years  ago. 
An  immense  part  of  Siberia  reproduces  North 
186 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

Dakota ;  the  same  level  plain,  the  same  black  soil, 
the  same  beautiful  carpet  of  green  and  gold  and 
red  and  blue,  about  the  same  climate,  only  more 
of  it,  the  same  marvelous  capacity  for  growing 
wheat,  the  same  peculiar  blue  in  the  sky,  the  same 
tonic  wine  in  the  air.  Yea,  and  by  the  soul  of  man, 
the  resemblance  goes  still  further,  for  in  Man- 
churia, leaning  meditatively  against  a  station  wall, 
I  have  seen  a  North  American  Indian,  and  more 
than  one  of  him.  There  he  was,  unmistakably ;  the 
high  cheek-bones,  the  copper  tint,  the  black  hair, 
the  piercing  eyes,  the  arched  nose,  and  they  even 
tell  me  he  has  habits  and  instincts  like  the  abo- 
riginal American!  There  was  not  a  doubt  of  it, 
we  had  come  upon  the  cradle  of  a  race ;  the  Kuril 
and  Aleutian  Islands  were  the  road  by  which  he 
had  traveled;  and  from  where  we  were  to  the 
Penobscot  and  beyond,  half  way  round  the  world, 
he  had  wandered  and  populated  a  continent. 
There  may  be  stranger  things  in  the  human  story 
than  the  relation  of  this  spot  to  America  and,  as 
events  fell  out,  of  America  to  this  spot,  but  I  do 
not  know  what  they  are. 

I  spoke  a  moment  ago  of  the  huge  masses  of  list- 
less, unemployed  and  bored  soldiers  that  one  saw 
all  along  the  line.    That  was  another  curse  laid 

187 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

upon  poor  Russia  by  autocracy.  I  have  long  been 
convinced  that  God  hates  the  autocratic  form  of 
government,  the  penalties  for  tolerating  it  are  so 
many,  so  varied  and  so  terrible.  This  was  one 
of  them.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the  won- 
drously  incompetent  Government  called  out 
14,000,000  men.  What  it  thought  it  could  do 
with  them  is  beyond  the  fathoming  of  the  finite 
mind,  since  it  had  rifles  for  only  1,800,000,  and  the 
second  Russian  line  was  armed  with  the  wooden 
sticks  I  have  mentioned  before.  Not  only  so,  but 
great  numbers  of  men  thus  armed  were  sent  into 
the  battle  of  Tannenberg  and  slaughtered  like 
cattle.  There  was  not  then  nor  at  any  time  later 
in  the  war  employment  nor  room  at  the  front  for 
so  many  men,  but  the  Provisional  Government, 
which  was  in  control  when  I  was  in  Russia,  hesi- 
tated to  demobilize  the  superfluous  men  because 
it  knew  the  fact  would  be  hailed  by  the  German 
propaganda  as  heralding  the  Russian  collapse. 
Also,  very  likely  it  lacked  the  decision  to  make 
this  or  any  other  radical  motion  and  so  drifted 
inert  down  to  the  cataract  and  over  it.  There  is 
an  interesting  speculation  whether  if  it  had  sent 
home  the  useless  part  of  its  army  it  might  not 

188 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

have  survived  for  a  time  with  the  rest,  but  this  is 
profitless. 

Of  what  autocracy  meant  to  Russia  and  what 
were  the  inner  soul  and  sense  of  it,  there  was  in 
condensed  form  an  excellent  illustration  in  that 
over-decorated  and  over-upholstered  train  we 
occupied.  It  had  satin  hangings,  silk  curtains, 
thick  silk  carpets,  easy-chairs,  lounges,  bookcases, 
writing-desks,  clocks,  barometers;  money  had 
been  spent  upon  it  without  stint  and  without  rea- 
son. We  sat  at  ease  in  it  and  rode  past  thousands 
and  thousands  of  the  people  whose  toil  had  fur- 
nished all  this  and  who  now  stood  patiently  wait- 
ing for  hours  for  their  own  poor  train  that  did  not 
come.  Or  we  sat  in  easy-chairs  and  floated  past 
such  people  roosting  upon  the  wooden  benches  in 
the  rude  conveyances,  no  better  than  cattle-cars, 
that  dull-brained  autocracy  had  provided  for  them. 
And  we  rode  past  the  wheat  piled  house  high,  the 
potatoes  rotting  in  the  fields,  and  the  cattle 
browsing  in  huge  herds  over  the  hills,  to  Petro- 
grad,  where  the  people  stood  half  of  each  day  in 
bread  lines,  meat  lines,  milk  lines  and  potato  lines. 

The  money  that  should  have  provided  trans- 
portation for  these  things  had  gone  into  silk  cur- 
tains,   satin   lounges,    easy-chairs,   kitchen   cars, 

189 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

guards'  cars  and  the  rest  for  a  family  of  half- 
witted parasites  that  the  form  of  government  had 
saddled  upon  the  country.  Into  these  things  and 
into  the  pockets  of  a  horde  of  grafters  and  pilfer- 
ers that  the  parasitical  system  maintained  and 
protected. 

Against  the  fruits  of  all  these  iniquities,  which 
it  had  inherited,  the  Provisional  Government  was 
making  a  desperate  struggle,  ably  assisted  by  the 
Stevens  Commission  of  American  railroad  ex- 
perts. So  great  were  the  exigencies  of  the  times 
that  the  work  of  this  most  able  commission,  which 
at  another  period  would  have  been  of  world-wide 
note,  was  obscured  from  sight  and  never  received 
adequate  attention.  The  men  that  composed  it 
were  more  than  efficient  railroad  commanders; 
they  were  at  once  of  recondite  learning  in  their 
profession  and  of  unusual  character  as  citizens. 
They  gave  to  the  cause  of  democracy  at  a  very 
critical  time  a  most  unselfish  and  ungrudging 
service.  That  Mr.  John  F.  Stevens,  the  head  of 
the  commission,  should  have  stayed  on  in  Eussia 
many  months  after  the  Bolshevic  revolt,  clinging 
still  to  the  slenderest  hope  that  his  plans  might 
be  put  into  operation  and  Eussia  saved  from  the 
economic  disaster  that  threatened  it,  was  but  typi- 

190 


A  BROKEN  DOWN  RAILROAD 

oal.  When  we  add  the  fact  that  Mr.  Stevens' 
health  was  not  good,  that  he  was  believed  to  be  in 
great  physical  danger  from  the  civil  war  raging 
about  him  and  that  he  was  neglecting  at  home  all 
his  personal  interests,  he  seems  to  have  deserved 
as  well  as  any  general  on  a  battle  field. 

There  was  much  and  reasonable  patriotic  pride 
in  this  commission.  One  night  at  the  Winter  Pal- 
ace while  I  was  there,  Mr.  Henry  Miller,  a  mem- 
ber, sat  for  an  hour  and  talked  of  the  condition  of 
the  Russian  railroad  system,  and  his  discourse  was 
a  thing  to  cause  a  philosopher  to  ponder,  for  he 
spoke  with  such  a  command  of  language  as  only 
the  cultured  compass,  with  a  technical  mastery  of 
every  detail  of  his  subject  that  could  only  be  at- 
tained by  years  of  specializing,  and  with  the  quiet 
dignity  of  him  that  keeps  his  reserve  power  in- 
tact. On  reflection  I  was  led  to  doubt  very  much 
if  any  other  country  could  have  produced  a  man 
so  variously  endowed  and  that  doubt  I  still  en- 
tertain. 

The  impatience  of  the  Bolshevics,  the  great 
force  of  the  German  maneuvers  in  Russia,  the  re- 
actions from  the  bread  lines  and  the  meat  lines, 
and  the  mangled  manner  in  which  the  cause  of 
the  Allies  was  presented,  overwhelmed  the  coun- 

191 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

try  before  the  poor  old  Trans-Siberian  had  a 
chance  to  profit  by  the  excellent  plan  of  rehabilita- 
tion drawn  by  these  skilful  men.  Yet  some  day  it 
will  be  put  into  operation.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
when  that  day  comes  the  authors  of  it  will  be 
remembered  with  at  least  a  part  of  the  credit  they 
deserve. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

At  the  news,  which  came  forth  in  the  summer 
of  1917,  that  the  Russian  "Battalion  of  Death," 
formed  of  women  soldiers,  was  actually  going  to 
the  firing-line  to  kill  and  be  killed,  the  rest  of  the 
world  seems  to  have  gasped,  half  astonied.  No- 
body was  astonied  in  Russia.  There,  to  the  wise 
observer,  it  seemed  perfectly  natural.  The  Rus- 
sian woman  had  no  more  than  found  a  new  field 
for  her  capable  mind  and  restless  energy.  Why 
be  astonied? 

She  was  but  bent  upon  making  more  history, 
which  may  be  said  to  have  become  almost  a  spe- 
cialty of  hers  and  a  line  in  which  she  has  few  su- 
periors. She  made  a  thick  and  unforgetable 
volume  of  it  March  12  to  14,  1917,  for  instance. 
Then  it  was  she  that  thrust  in  the  lever,  over- 
turned vast  rooted  empire,  and  shot  the  once  Im- 
perial and  Gracious  Majesty  from  the  seat  of  his 
fathers.    She  did  it,  the  woman  of  Russia.    After 

193 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

all  the  years  of  revolutionary  talk,  dreams,  hopes, 
and  propaganda,  hers  was  the  hand. 

The  time,  of  course,  was  ripe  for  the  fall  of  the 
house  of  bondage.  With  a  savagery  unequaled 
even  in  its  own  savage  story,  Russian  autocracy 
had  suppressed  the  revolution  of  1905,  and  made 
itself  the  historic  sign  of  loathing  so  long  as  men 
shall  read  its  record.  New  born  democracy  seemed 
to  have  been  drowned  literally  in  a  sea  of  blood 
upon  which  the  Czar  sailed  more  secure  than 
ever.  But  all  the  time  those  that  watched  with  any 
care  the  inner  workings  of  events  knew  that  the 
days  of  absolutism  in  Russia  were  numbered.  In- 
cessant labor,  indescribable  sacrifice  had  made  all 
things  ready  for  the  last  scene  of  the  tragedy,  but 
it  was  the  women  that  rang  the  signal  and  fur- 
nished the  greater  part  of  the  initial  action. 

The  snow  was  deep  in  the  streets  and  the  cold 
was  brutal.  It  always  is  brutal,  all  the  way  from 
November  to  May  or  thereabouts.  Long  lines  of 
women  were  standing  in  front  of  the  bakeries  and 
meat  shops.  To  wait  in  line  for  your  daily  food 
is  at  any  time  in  any  place  irksome  business. 
March  12,  latitude  of  Petrograd,  which  is  one  quar- 
ter of  a  degree  from  the  Arctic  circle,  waiting  in 
line  is  long-drawn  torture  and  no  better  than  man- 

194 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

killing — or  woman-killing.  Sometimes  they  light 
fires  at  the  street-corners  of  Petrograd  to  keep 
pedestrians  from  freezing.  There  were  no  such 
fires  along  the  hundreds  of  bread-lines  that  morn- 
ing; and  as  to  freezing,  the  women  took  their 
chances. 

Of  a  sudden,  in  a  side  street  just  off  the  Nevsky 
Prospekt,  it  struck  some  of  the  women  that  they 
had  had  about  enough  of  this.  With  no  more  than 
a  vague  impulse  of  protest,  they  broke  out  of  the 
line  where  so  many  mornings  they  had  stood  in 
sheeplike  patience,  and  started  down  the  street 
crying:    " We  want  bread!    Give  us  bread!" 

They  had  touched  the  right  string.  At  every 
corner  other  women  flung  themselves  out  of  the 
lines,  fell  into  step,  and  added  shrill  voices  to  the 
chorus.  Other  people  peeped  through  their  double 
windows  at  the  strange  sight;  then  tore  down- 
stairs to  join  the  procession. 

It  was  a  bold  thing  to  do ;  they  were  facing  al- 
most certain  death.  They  knew  it  well  enough; 
they  had  not  forgotten  Bloody  Monday,  when  just 
such  a  crowd,  only  much  greater,  had  done  what 
these  women  were  doing  now,  and  seven  days 
afterward  the  snow  in  the  square  before  the  Win- 
ter Palace  was  still  dark  with  their  blood,  a  saving 

195 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

sacrifice  to  his  Imperial  Majesty,  Nicholas  II, 
Czar  of  all  the  Eussias. 

And  now  women  were  crying  it  again,  that  cry 
of  deadly  peril,  spite  of  Bloody  Monday,  spite  of 
all  memories  of  the  red  blotched  snow.  "We 
want  bread !    Give  ns  bread ! ' ' 

The  police,  the  hated  blackcoats,  ran  hotfoot  to 
put  down  this  sedition  among  the  Czar's  patient 
sheep.  The  mounted  gendarmes  came  to  ride  over 
them.  In  five  more  minutes,  according  to  prece- 
dent, it  should  have  been  over ;  some  women  shot, 
some  women  sabered,  some  women  trampled  to 
death  under  horses'  feet,  some  women  dragged 
to  jail — and  all  well  again.  So  many  women,  so 
many  sheep.  Peace  reigns  again  in  the  happy 
sheepfold  of  the  Czar  of  all  the  Eussias,  gracious 
and  benign.  Sing,  all  of  you  that  survive,  God 
Save  the  Czar ! 

But  this  time  it  did  not  result  acording  to  form- 
ula and  well-known  custom.  Soldiers  of  the  Pet- 
rograd  garrison  had  come  upon  the  scene  and 
taken  a  hand  in  the  playing.  With  grim  oaths 
they  swore  they  would  kill  the  first  policeman  that 
laid  hand  upon  one  of  these  women.  A  blackcoat 
slashed  with  his  saber  at  a  woman's  head.  Bing! 
went  the  soldiers'  rifles.    The  policeman  fell  dead, 

196 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

the  other  policemen  fired  back — the  Revolution 
was  on ! 

The  Russian  woman  had  brought  it  on,  and 
now  with  conspicuous  courage  she  bore  her  part 
in  it.  Beyond  all  doubt  she  is  a  good  sort ;  she  has 
character,  resolution,  and  courage,  no  end.  There 
was  hot  fighting  that  day  up  and  down  the  Nevsky 
Prospekt,  at  that  big  red  arch  leading  into  the 
square  of  the  Winter  Palace,  in  the  Liteinia,  in 
other  streets.  The  police  knew  their  game ;  as  be- 
fore, they  got  upon  the  house-tops  with  their  ma- 
chine-guns. Soldiers  and  armed  revolutionists 
fired  at  them  from  the  streets  below. 

Where  did  they  get  their  guns — the  suddenly 
made  citizens?  The  soldiers,  I  know,  helped  them 
to  some,  but  the  surplusage  must  have  come  out 
of  subcellars,  from  behind  old  attic  beams,  out  of 
carefully  covered  holes  in  the  wall,  where  even  the 
always  watching,  sneaking,  stealthily  creeping  po- 
lice agents  could  never  find  them;  and  now  they 
were  brought  out  by  the  women  that  had  cleverly 
hidden  them  away.  Women  appeared  everywhere 
in  that  fighting,  Joans  of  Arc,  unheralded  and  un- 
sung. Women  urged  the  men  on,  exposed  them- 
selves recklessly  to  the  streams  of  bullets  from  the 
machine-guns,  helped  to  build  and  defend  the  bar- 

197 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

ricades.  The  stories  of  the  eye-witnesses  always 
include  something  about  a  woman  that  snatched  a 
gun  from  a  hesitating  citizen  and  fired  it,  or  some 
startling  deed  of  that  other  heroine  never  suffi- 
ciently celebrated,  that  woman  of  activity  so  tire- 
less and  traits  of  leadership  so  obvious  that  the 
soldiers  instinctively  saluted  and  called ' '  Comrade 
Captain. ' ' 

The  fight  went  on  for  hours.  In  the  afternoon 
it  began  to  go  against  the  blackcoats.  Soldiers 
tired  of  pot-shooting  from  the  streets  and  got  to 
the  house-tops,  where  they  drove  the  police  from 
building  to  building.  Sometimes  they  would  cor- 
ner a  group  and  pitch  them  into  the  streets,  liv- 
ing or  dead.  The  people  below,  men  and  women, 
would  seize  them  and  throw  them  into  the  canals : 
living  or  dead,  in  they  went. 

Retribution  for  generations  of  hideous  wrong. 
Probably  no  men  upon  this  earth  were  ever  so 
hated  or  so  well  deserved  to  be.  They  were  the 
prize,  pet,  and  selected  blackguards  of  the  world, 
sifted  with  care  for  every  quality  that  can  most 
make  a  man  hateful.  They  licked  the  boots  of 
place  or  authority,  and  upon  weakness,  misfor- 
tune, or  revolt  vented  a  horrifying  cruelty.  If 
even  the  gentlest  woman  was  that  day  rejoiced  by 

198 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

their  fate,  you  will  understand  why.  Revenge  is 
utterly  alien  to  the  Russian  character,  but  to  exe- 
cute justice  upon  the  Russian  police  system  would 
be  in  Russian  eyes  only  a  solemn  duty. 

This  active  part  the  Russian  women  played  in 
the  final  uprising  is  what  anyone  that  knew 
them  would  have  forecasted.  From  the  beginning 
the  women  have  been  the  soul  and  chief  inspiration 
of  the  revolutionary  movement.  In  some  ways  it 
owes  more  to  them  than  to  the  men;  the  women 
had  usually  the  higher  ideal,  the  greater  readiness 
for  sacrifice,  the  more  dogged  and  dauntless  per- 
sistence. So  it  will  appear  when  some  day  this 
marvelous  record  is  made  up,  but  even  now  who- 
ever has  been  privileged  to  talk  with  the  women 
of  the  Revolution  feels  and  knows  that  this  must 
be  the  truth. 

They  had  eminent  need  of  all  fortitude,  for 
nothing,  I  affirm,  was  ever  known  in  this  world 
that  demanded  higher  qualities  of  courage  and 
capacity.  The  Revolutionists  fought  against  the 
full  strength  of  the  most  powerful  of  all  autocra- 
cies, the  greatest  and  most  ruthless  police  force, 
the  greatest  network  of  cunning  spies.  Few  Revo- 
lutionists ever  felt  the  luxury  of  completely  trust- 
ing anybody.    The  most  fervent  and  active  Czar- 

199 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

haters  by  their  side  might  be  agents  of  the  police ; 
their  own  brothers  and  sisters  might  betray  them. 

It  is  agreed  on  all  sides  that  in  those  long  years 
of  darkness  and  misery,  women  were  the  strong- 
est element  in  the  movement.  Women  were  the 
dauntless  and  most  efficient  purveyors  of  the  fur- 
tive propaganda. 

Over  the  washtub  or  the  soup-kettle,  they  knew 
how  to  convey  information  to  other  women  in 
ways  the  police  could  never  detect,  and  at  night 
the  women  that  received  it  whispered  it  into  the 
ears  of  their  husbands. 

Men,  they  say,  sometimes  became  discouraged; 
the  thing  looked  so  impossible  for  our  time,  so 
hopelessly  far  off.  But  the  women  kept  on  and 
knew  not  the  meaning  of  dismay.  The  world  has 
no  fair  knowledge  of  what  they  went  through  and 
probably  never  will  have.  Hundreds  were  put  to 
death.  Thousands  were  sent  to  Siberia,  that  place 
of  darkness  and  tears.  But  not  hideous  Siberia, 
nor  beatings,  nor  chains,  nor  the  ingenious  tor- 
tures of  human-fiend  jailers,  nor  starvation,  cold, 
nor  loneliness  in  prison  cells,  that  potent  devil  to 
cow  stout  hearts,  ever  conquered  the  soul  within 
them.  Loneliness  might  kill  them.  It  is  recorded 
that  scores  died  of  it;  but  it  never  chilled  their 

200 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

faith.  As  fast  as  one  was  hanged  or  swept  away 
to  exile,  another  arose  to  take  her  place  and  repeat 
her  deeds.  On  the  day  that  Sophie  Perovskaia 
was  hanged  for  the  killing  of  Czar  Alexander  II, 
the  police  Drought  in  three  women  for  plotting  to 
kill  his  successor. 

The  world  marvels  at  the  story  of  the  "Ba- 
bushka," the  "Mother  Catherine,"  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, of  whom  I  have  spoken  in  another  chaptei, 
but  when  you  come  to  know  what  the  Revolution 
really  was  she  seems  only  its  logical  expression. 
Amazing  woman — with  the  sweet  face  of  a  saint 
and  the  soul  of  a  warrior  indomitable!  Where 
outside  of  Russia  will  you  find  another  story  like 
hers? 

After  years  of  successful  Revolutionary  propa- 
ganda carried  on  in  the  subcellar  and  attic  as  was 
required  of  such  agents,  the  police  got  her  at  last 
and  immured  her  in  the  cold  tomb  of  Siberia — for 
life.  She  did  what  few  of  their  victims  ever  did ; 
she  managed  to  escape,  to  make  her  way  through 
a  bleak  and  horrible  wilderness  to  safety  and 
finally  to  the  United  States.  Here  she  had  every- 
thing that  should  have  made  her  contented :  peace, 
security,  the  undying  affection  of  thousands  of 
friends.     She  put  all  these  aside  to  thrust  her 

201 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

head  back  into  the  lion's  mouth  because  the  rest- 
less spirit  burning  within  her  would  not  let  her 
do  otherwise.  Friends  wasted  upon  her  their  ar- 
guments and  appeals ;  she  resolutely  turned  back 
to  Kussia.  Most  persons  could  never  understand 
why  she  should  be  so  indifferent  to  the  conse- 
quences. She  was  a  Russian  woman;  that  tells 
all. 

She  went  back  to  the  Revolution.  In  a  few 
weeks  some  spy  detected  her.  A  day  or  two  later 
she  was  traveling  once  more  to  the  Siberian  dun- 
geon from  which  she  had  escaped.  She  was  hap- 
pier then  than  she  had  been  at  any  time  when  she 
was  free.  She  sang  songs  and  was  glad  and  warm 
within.  She  felt  now  that  she  was  not  enjoying 
security  and  comfort  while  others  suffered  for 
the  cause,  that  she  was  bearing  her  part  and  tak- 
ing her  share.  Nothing  could  be  more  Russian  or 
more  typical  of  the  Russian  woman,  and  in  spite 
of  all  that  has  happened  since,  I  cherish  still  the 
belief  that  of  her  manifestations  the  world  may 
well  take  heed. 

She  went  back  to  Siberia  as  to  her  grave,  as- 
sured she  would  never  taste  freedom  again.  Ten 
years  later  the  Russia  she  suffered  for  suddenly 
cast  off  its  shackles  and  stood  forth  free,  and  all 

202 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

political  prisoners  being  released  wherever  they 
might  be,  Mother  Catherine  was  returned  to  the 
sunlight  and  free  air. 

It  was  a  wonderful  day  when  she  came  again 
to  Petrograd.  New  Russia  regarded  with  pecul- 
iar reverence  all  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  the 
Revolution,  but  reverenced  none  so  much  as  the 
"  Babushka,"  the  little  grandmother.  Dense 
crowds  filled  all  the  streets  she  passed.  I  think 
they  wept  as  much  as  they  cheered.  This  dear  old 
soul  that  had  endured  so  much  and  so  long  for 
their  freedom,  the  absolutely  fearless  soul  that 
walked  smiling  through  the  most  appalling  perils 
— and  now  come  back  to  life.  Perfect  types  of 
Russian  revolutionary  womanhood,  Mother  Cath- 
erine, Vera  Figner,  and  that  most  extraordinary 
figure  of  all,  Marie  Spirodonovo — I  think  we  may 
challenge  history  to  produce  their  analogues,  and 
yet  how  many  thousands  were  there  in  Russia  of 
a  spirit  exactly  like  these ! 

Such  women  now  have  the  vote  in  Russia  and 
will  have  much  to  say  about  the  shaping  of  events 
there.  Perhaps  the  reason  why  America  so  long 
refused  to  believe  that  woman  suffrage  was 
achieved  in  Russia  was  because  it  was  achieved  so 
easily.     Our  conception  of  woman  suffrage  is  a 

203 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

great  and  precious  boon  that  in  a  few  places  has 
been  grudgingly  bestowed  after  long  struggle,  and 
elsewhere  may  possibly  be  won  by  other  long 
struggles — say  some  centuries  hence.  Eussia  had 
a  different  view  of  it.  In  Eussia  equality  and  jus- 
tice for  women  were  looked  upon  as  the  only  nor- 
mal condition,  and  the  regions  where  women  were 
excluded  from  public  affairs  were  the  anomaly — 
and  portent. 

When  the  country  came  to  elect  the  delegates  to 
the  National  Council  and  women  voted  on  the 
same  terms  as  men,  nobody  dreamed  of  any  other 
arrangement ;  freedom  was  for  all,  not  for  a  half 
of  the  population.  Women  voted  in  the  remote 
parts  of  Eussia  and  Siberia,  peasant  women  that 
until  March  12,  1917,  had  been  regarded  by  the 
gracious  ruling  class  as  the  lowest  herd  of  all  the 
sheep  in  the  imperial  fold.  And  now  they  came 
forward  to  choose  delegates  that  should  hold  in 
their  hands  the  lives  of  the  once  ruling  class  and 
the  future  of  Eussia. 

The  best  known  of  the  five  women  delegates 
that  sat  in  the  National  Council  was  Lydia  Eabin- 
ovitch,  then  aged  twenty-four.  I  heard  her  speak 
once  on  world  peace,  and  if  I  could  judge  from  the 
translation  that  one  of  my  Eussian  friends  whis- 

204 


THE  PABT  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

pered  in  my  ear  as  she  went  along,  it  was  a  won- 
derful speech.  Certainly  its  effect  upon  the  audi- 
ence was  electric.  She  spoke  with  excellent  wit, 
self-possession,  and  skill.  As  before  remarked  it 
was  a  difficult  hall  to  speak  in,  because  it  was  so 
disproportionately  long.  When  I  stood  on  the 
platform,  it  seemed  to  me  the  last  man  down  there 
was  a  mile  and  a  quarter  away.  But  even  he 
heard  Miss  Rabinovitch. 

It  may  be  taken  as  some  indication  of  what  was 
at  that  time  the  prevailing  attitude  of  this  coun- 
try toward  Russia  that  when  the  story  of  Miss 
Rabinovitch  became  known  here  it  met  with  some 
incredulity  and  a  general  questioning  as  to  how 
in  an  illiterate  country  she  could  have  learned  her 
command  of  language  and  her  skill  to  make  an 
effective  speech.  In  point  of  fact  she  was  a  uni- 
versity graduate,  spoke  French  and  German  ex- 
cellently, and  in  the  odd  moments  of  her  exciting 
occupations  as  a  delegate,  was  conquering  Eng- 
lish. 

I  noticed  that  she  seemed  to  take  her  position 
in  the  Council  as  a  matter  of  course  and  her  high 
standing  among  its  speakers  with  unaffected  mod- 
esty, but  what  did  plainly  seem  to  her  strange  was 
the  position  of  women  in  the  United  States.    She 

205 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

asked  me  many  questions  as  to  the  reasons  why 
all  the  women  in  America  did  not  have  the  fran- 
chise, why  they  had  it  in  some  parts  of  the  coun- 
try and  not  in  others,  and  was  particularly  struck 
with  the  fact  that  until  the  Congress  then  in  ses- 
sion we  had  never  had  a  woman  in  our  national 
legislature.  I  believe  that  my  efforts  to  explain 
this  circumstance  failed  to  convince  her. 

One  of  the  other  woman  members  of  the  Council 
was  among  its  most  impressive  figures  and  abides 
in  my  memory  always  as  the  very  image  of  Rus- 
sia. She  was  neither  young  nor  fair.  She  was 
tall,  gaunt,  gray  haired,  with  furrowed  face,  ex- 
tremely sad,  and  keen  gray  eyes.  I  used  to  see  her 
sitting  at  her  desk  with  her  head  resting  on  one 
hand,  contemplating  the  proceedings  with  an  ex- 
pression of  melancholy  profound  and  tragic 
enough  to  move  any  beholder.  I  never  saw  her 
smile  even  when  all  the  rest  of  the  assembly  was 
moved,  as  for  instance  by  my  peasant  orator,  to 
shouts  of  laughter,  and  although  she  took  active 
interest  in  the  proceedings  it  was  in  such  a 
strangely  detached  way  that  I  used  to  sit  and  won- 
der at  her.  She  had  been  an  exile  and  what  she 
had  endured  must  have  burned  out  of  her  all  ca- 
pacity for  mirth  or  any  thoughts  but  sad  thoughts. 

206 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

Certainly  the  horror  of  it  was  reflected  in  her  face. 
I  thought  I  could  see  there  the  knout  and  the  drip- 
ping dungeon,  the  long,  weary  journeyings,  the 
long  nights  and  frightful  cold  of  the  Arctic  circle 
and  the  still  worse  things  that  wring  the  heart  of 
every  reader  of  the  true  story  of  such  a  martyr 
of  human  liberty  as  Marie  Spirodonovo,  for  in- 
stance. 

It  was  while  I  was  searching  for  Miss  Spiro- 
donovo that  I  had  a  chance  to  see  for  myself  how 
universal  is  the  suspicion  that  generations  of  tyr- 
anny have  bred  in  the  Russian  mind  and  at  the 
same  time  how  instinctive  is  the  free  masonry  of 
common  protection  among  the  Russian  women.  I 
had  secured  from  the  committee  in  charge  of  the 
returned  Siberian  exiles  what  was  supposed  to  be 
Miss  Spirodonovo 's  address  in  Petrograd.  It  was 
far  over  on  the  east  side  of  the  city,  the  third  flat 
in  a  comfortable  apartment  house  evidently  oc- 
cupied by  the  fairly  well  to  do.  A  woman  came 
in  answer  to  our  ring  and  as  she  opened  the  door 
and  swept  us  with  a  keen  glance  I  saw  her  face 
shut  up  like  a  pair  of  pincers.  The  first  glimpse  of 
her  had  shown  a  face  of  intelligence  and  ready  wit. 
The  next  instant  it  had  taken  on  the  look  of  im- 
penetrable  dullness.     My   interpreter   explained 

207 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

who  I  was  and  why  I  wanted  to  see  her  famous 
lodger.  The  woman  listened  as  if  she  were  mak- 
ing every  effort  to  understand,  but  found  it  really 
too  difficult  for  her  poor  struggling  mind  to  grasp. 
Finally  she  said: 

"Miss  Spirodonovo  isn't  here  now." 

"She  lives  here,  does  she  not?" 

"Oh,  yes,  she  lives  here,  but  she  isn't  in  now." 

"Do  you  know  when  she  will  be  in?" 

"No,  she  went  out  about  12  o'clock  and  did  not 
say  when  she  was  coming  back.  But  it  will  not  be 
until  very  late,"  she  added  hastily,  to  head  off  any 
disposition  we  might  have  to  wait.  "She  never 
comes  in  until  very  late.  Midnight  at  least,"  she 
said  impressively. 

I  left  a  note  for  her  and  said  we  would  call 
again. 

A  day  or  two  later  I  returned  and  had  the  same 
experience.  But  the  next  time  I  called  the 
woman 's  husband  was  at  home.  He  was  a  dentist, 
educated  and  having  some  knowledge  of  the  world. 
When  he  was  assured  that  I  was  not  a  spy  nor 
any  other  emissary  of  evil  and  I  did  not  want 
to  assassinate  Miss  Spirodonovo,  he  confided  to 
me  that  she  did  not  live  at  that  address  and  never 
had  lived  there,  but  he  told  me  where  she  did  live 

208 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

and  it  was  far  away  on  the  other  side  of  the  city, 
beyond  the  Neva,  in  what  had  been  a  school  house 
but  had  now  been  commandeered  for  the  use  of  the 
returned  exiles,  and  where  with  five  other  women 
she  occupied  a  room  not  much  bigger  than  a 
closet. 

She  was  the  heroine  and  saint  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, she  might  have  had  anything  she  wanted, 
she  might  have  luxury  and  ease,  and  she  insisted 
upon  sharing  the  lot  of  other  exiles  because  she 
would  not  regard  herself  as  any  better  or  more 
deserving  than  they.  And  that  I  believe  to  be 
typical  of  the  Russian  woman  revolutionist. 

The  women's  battalion,  this  far  famed  "Bat- 
talion of  Death,"  had  a  history  so  perfectly  Rus- 
sian that  it  is  not  likely  to  be  forgotten  when  much 
of  the  rest  of  these  chronicles  shall  have  slipped 
from  men's  minds.  Contrary  to  the  world's  be- 
lief on  the  subject,  the  purpose  of  the  organiza- 
tion was  not  idle  display  nor  even  to  shame  the 
Russian  slacker  of  the  day.  It  was  seriously  and 
literally  to  go  out  and  fight  exactly  as  men  fought. 
For  women  to  fight  was  in  Russia  no  novelty ;  long 
before  the  Battalion  of  Death  was  formed  in  Pet- 
rograd,  thousands  of  women  were  fighting  in  the 
ranks  of  the  Russian  army.     The  first  I  saw  of 

209 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

this  phase  of  Russian  life  was  at  a  railroad  sta- 
tion on  the  Trans-Siberian.  There  had  been  some 
outbreaks  of  disorder  at  some  of  the  stations  and 
a  command  had  been  given  that  all  of  them  should 
be  guarded.  At  a  station  some  distance  east  of 
Chita,  two  soldiers  appeared  on  guard,  one  at  each 
end  of  the  little  station  building.  One  was  a  man 
and  the  other  was  a  woman.  She  was  dressed  in 
full  regimentals  exactly  like  the  man,  she  had  her 
yellow  hair  twisted  into  a  knot  at  the  back  of  her 
head,  just  under  the  rim  of  her  cap,  and  she  paced 
to  and  fro  with  her  bayoneted  rifle  on  her  shoulder 
in  a  manner  so  without  self -consciousness  that  it 
was  evident  she  was  perfectly  inured  to  the  work. 
None  of  the  natives,  whether  of  the  locality  or 
upon  the  train,  took  the  least  notice  of  her,  so  that 
plainly  she  offered  to  them  no  novelty.  It  was  the 
westerners  that  stared  as  at  a  marvel.  A  little 
farther  along  a  woman  was  firing  a  railroad  loco- 
motive, but  by  this  time  the  intrusion  of  women  in 
fields  of  work  hitherto  held  only  by  men  had 
ceased  to  be  new  to  us. 

On  my  way  to  and  from  the  Embassy  in  Petro- 
grad  I  used  to  pass  the  barracks  of  the  warrior 
women  and  see  them  drilling.  The  spectacle 
was  easy ;  they  drilled  in  a  little  field  at  the  rear 

210 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

of  the  barracks  and  quite  open  to  the  street.  Af- 
ter watching  them  many  times,  it  seemed  to  me 
they  were  as  likely  soldiers  as  any  others  I  had 
seen.  One  thing  that  always  impressed  me  was 
that  they  took  themselves  and  their  work  with 
the  utmost  seriousness  and  with  the  same  lack  of 
self-consciousness  I  had  remarked  in  the  woman 
at  the  station.  When  they  came  into  the  field  of 
battle  they  were  to  make  good  these  high  opinions 
of  their  soldierly  attributes. 

The  commandant  of  the  Petrograd  battalion, 
Madame  Botchkareva,  I  saw  often.  She  was  a 
peasant,  powerfully  built,  man-faced,  grim,  heavy- 
jawed,  close-lipped.  She  again  was  a  most  seri- 
ous soul  (with  such  a  face  one  could  not  expect 
her  to  be  anything  else)  and  had  a  mind  like  a 
parallelogram,  innocent  of  the  theatrical  or  the 
bizarre,  and  strange  as  it  may  seem,  quite  un- 
aware that  she  had  caused  the  nations  to  gossip 
about  her.  She  was  young,  but  already  a  veteran. 
She  knew  war,  she  had  fought  in  the  ranks.  She 
had  been  married  only  a  year  or  so  when  this  war 
came  and  her  young  husband  was  called  to  the 
colors.  Then  he  was  killed  in  action,  and  she  felt 
that  her  duty  was  to  take  his  place  in  the  ranks. 

211 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

She  enlisted  in  a  reserve  regiment  and  had  three 
months  of  training.  Then  she  was  added  to  a  regi- 
ment in  active  service  and  went  into  battle. 

All  that  any  soldier  knows  of  actual  warfare  she 
learned  in  bitter  experience.  She  fought  in  the 
trenches  with  the  water  up  to  her  waist,  she 
charged  with  the  rest  of  the  line,  she  faced  the 
machine-guns,  and  stood  steady  under  the  shrap- 
nel. She  was  wounded  and  carried  to  the  hospi- 
tal; she  recovered  and  went  back  to  fight.  Once 
all  the  regimental  officers  of  her  battalion  were 
killed.  There  was  no  one  to  lead  the  troops.  She 
sprang  up  and  shouted  to  the  men  to  follow  her. 
They  followed  her  and  took  two  trenches. 

She  got  the  St.  George's  Cross  and  Medal  for 
this,  the  highest  decoration  in  the  Russian  army. 
In  her  next  battle  a  machine-gunner  was  killed 
close  by,  and  she  arose  voluntarily  and  took  his 
place  and  got  another  St.  George  and  Medal. 
Only  four  hundred  of  her  regiment  were  left  alive 
after  that  action;  it  was  no  common-place  skir- 
mish. 

The  survivors  were  reformed  and  sent  to  the 
Austrian  front.  In  the  first  clash  there  she  was 
wounded  in  the  arm  and  shot  through  the  body. 

212 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

That  meant  for  her  six  months  in  the  hospital. 
When  she  returned,  it  was  with  a  captain's  com- 
mission and  another  St.  George  and  Medal.  The 
next  engagement  in  which  she  fought  proved  to 
be  again  a  fierce  conflict.  The  Austrians  charged 
six  times,  and  every  time  she  led  the  counter 
charge  that  drove  them  back ;  her  soldiers,  seeing 
her  uninjured,  said  she  had  a  charmed  life  and 
wanted  to  fight  again  under  her  orders. 

Her  second  in  command  of  the  Battalion  of 
Death  was  the  daughter  of  a  Russian  admiral, 
eighteen  years  old,  convent-bred,  and  reared  in 
luxury.  While  she  was  in  the  training-camp  she 
slept  on  a  board,  dug  trenches,  ate  the  daily  fare 
of  the  common  soldier,  and  drilled  with  a  rifle  six 
hours  a  day.  More  than  one  of  her  companions 
came  from  the  once  so-called  "noble"  families; 
but  the  majority  were  of  the  workers,  peasants 
like  their  commander,  or  the  wives  or  daughters  of 
Petrograd  artisans. 

Nearly  all  the  women  recruits  voluntarily 
clipped  their  hair  close  to  their  skulls,  the  Rus- 
sian soldier's  favorite  fashion.  They  wore  the 
Russian  soldier's  ordinary  uniform,  belted  tunic, 
trousers,  high  black  boots.  The  first  time  I  saw 
one  she  stalked  thus  garbed  into  a  street-car.    I 

213 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

looked  at  her  with  eyes  of  inattention ;  there  were 
twenty  other  soldiers  in  that  car  attired  exactly 
like  her.  Then  my  interpreter  nudged  me,  and  I 
looked  again  and  made  ont  that  this  was  one  of 
the  Battalion  of  Death.  The  other  passengers 
seemed  to  discover  the  fact  about  the  same  time. 
What  most  struck  me  was  that  everybody  treated 
her  with  a  gentle  respect.  There  were  many 
young  men  and  young  women  on  that  car,  but 
none  of  them  laughed  or  gibed  or  commented. 
I  wondered  what  would  happen  if  this  girl  had 
stepped  in  the  like  circumstances  into  a  street-car 
in  America.  "Wondered?  Nay,  recalling  certain 
scenes  on  the  New  York  subway  at  night,  I 
thought  I  knew. 

On  the  following  night  I  was  in  a  restaurant, 
and  four  of  them  entered  quietly  and  took  seats. 
The  other  diners  glanced  up  with  curious  interest, 
but  nobody  stared,  nobody  laughed,  nobody  fa- 
vored us  with  hee-haw  remarks. 

The  great  square  in  front  of  St.  Isaac's  Cathe- 
dral was  an  impressive  spectacle  the  day  the 
women  soldiers  started  for  the  trenches.  The  ex- 
cellent Archbishop  Platon  of  Petrograd,  friend  of 
America  and  friend  of  democracy,  officiated  at  the 
solemn  ceremony  with  which  the  Russian  Church 

214 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

blesses  the  arms  of  those  that  go  to  war.  The 
women  marched  into  the  square  in  smart,  soldier- 
ly fashion;  yet  no  one  had  reason  to  think  they 
were  on  dress  parade  or  viewed  their  task  flip- 
pantly. 

As  to  that  you  can  judge  better  with  some  ex- 
tracts from  the  address  they  issued  to  the  coun- 
try just  before  they  left  for  the  front : 

"Russian  Women! 

"Our  Mothers  and  Sisters! 

"We  write  these  lines  with  the  blood  of  our 
hearts.  Listen  to  us.  Go  with  us  in  the  name  of 
your  fallen  heroes,  dear  to  your  memory. 

"You,  the  valiant  warriors,  our  soldiers  of  free 
Russia,  you  who  have  retained  the  sense  of  honor, 
of  shame,  of  courage  in  your  hearts,  we  turn  to 
you.  When  will  you  raise  your  powerful  voice 
and  silence  forever  the  cowardly  lips  of  shameful 
Russian  jackals  dressed  in  soldiers'  uniforms?  Or 
are  you  waiting  for  the  time  when  we  shall  be  un- 
able to  distinguish  between  you  and  these  traitors, 
when  we  shall  be  forced  to  look  upon  all  soldiers 
with  contempt?  .  .  . 

"We  also  turn  to  you,  soldiers,  cowards  and 
traitors,  who  like  Judas  are  selling  Russia  for 

215 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

thirty  pieces  of  silver,  bartering  the  sweat  of  your 
fathers  and  the  bread  of  your  children  to  the  Ger- 
mans. 

"Soon,  very  soon,  you  will  prefer  to  face  ten 
German  bayonets  rather  than  one  Eussian  ti- 
gress !    We  pour  our  maledictions  upon  you ! ' ' 

But  there  were  causes  at  work  too  deep  to  be 
reached  by  maledictions.  A  nation  weary  of  a 
war  it  did  not  understand,  and  in  which  it  had  no 
interest,  could  not  be  made  to  fight  by  screaming 
proclamations.  After  so  much  gallant  prepara- 
tions in  the  lime  light  the  finish  of  the  story  of 
the  Battalion  of  Death  was  inglorious.  It  went 
to  the  front,  it  held  some  trenches,  it  was  reported 
in  one  action  to  have  fought  bravely,  to  have 
taken  some  prisoners  and  lost  some,  and  then 
came  the  Bolshevic  upheaval  of  November,  1917, 
and  all  was  over  for  the  Battalion  of  Death.  It 
was  Eussian.  Being  Eussian  it  said  as  all  other 
Eussians  said,  "What's  the  use?  These  people 
are  determined  to  do  this  kind  of  thing  and  they 
will  do  it  anyway,"  and  like  the  rest  of  Eussia  it 
sat  down  patiently  to  wait.  "Nichy  vo," — "it 
does  not  matter" — the  characteristic  Eussian  fa- 
talism, had  its  perfect  work.  After  all  the  drilling 
and  the  blessing,  the  clipping  of  fair  locks  and  the 

216 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  RUSSIAN  WOMEN 

donning  of  soldiers'  attire,  the  result  was  no  more 
than  a  share  in  the  general  collapse  of  the 
strength  of  Russia.  At  least  it  was  so  for  the  time 
being.  Possibly  the  future  may  have  another 
story  to  tell. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PEASANT 

Let  a  man  have  so  much  as  an  average  gift  of 
imagination,  and  let  him  come  of  a  sudden  and 
for  the  first  time  upon  a  typical  Russian  village, 
and  though  he  be  as  optimistic  as  the  lark  the 
heart  is  likely  to  sink  within  him ;  all  the  more  if 
the  weather  be  gray. 

Drearier  place  of  habitation,  he  will  say,  is  not 
known  to  man ;  even  an  American  prairie  town  of 
forty  years  ago  was  not  more  dismal.  A  jumble 
of  ancient  roofs,  partly  in  disrepair ;  a  jumble  of 
unpainted,  uncompromising  timber  huts,  gone 
gray  like  the  sky;  barn  and  dwelling,  outhouse 
and  toolhouse,  askew  along  a  lane  of  quagmires 
and  deep,  ancient  ruts ;  superfluous  indications  of 
unkempt  barnyard  offending  three  senses;  and 
over  all  an  air  that  strikes  the  Westerner  like  a 
blow  in  the  face,  an  air  of  seeming  unthrift  and 
neglect ;  that  is  his  first  impression  and  sometimes 
his  last. 

Hence,  the  average  traveler  from  the  "West,  be- 
ing told  that  75  per  cent  of  Russia  is  peasant 

218 


THE  PEASANT 

and  nearly  all  of  peasant  Russia  lives  much  like 
this,  gives  up  in  despair.  Build  a  nation  of  such 
materials  in  such  conditions?  You  might  as  well 
go  build  cathedrals  of  rushes! 

But  of  course  to  the  rigid  Western  sense  every- 
thing in  Russia  is  so  wrong  end  to  and  so  upside 
down  that  it  should  be  read  from  right  to  left  like 
Hebrew  text.  Poor  looks  the  village,  gloomy,  for- 
lorn and  as  without  hope ;  yet  it  contains  the  very 
heart  of  Russia;  it  is  the  ceaseless  dynamo  of 
Russian  political  activity,  it  made  the  Revolution 
possible ;  those  that  saw  closely  the  stages  of  the 
evolution  always  believed  it  would  make  the  Re- 
public and  make  it  great. 

Everything  in  Russia  comes  home  at  last  to  the 
peasant;  all  must  depend  upon  him.  In  1860  he 
was  a  slave  that  owned  not  so  much  as  his  own 
hard  and  toiling  hands.  The  year  1917  beheld 
him  in  the  seats  of  the  mighty,  shaping  destiny, 
not  only  for  his  own  country  but  for  ours  and  all 
others.  The  fantastic  whirligig  of  this  our  human 
existence  may  show  some  other  upending  like  this, 
but  surely  on  no  such  scale.  I  should  think  it  one 
of  the  most  stupendous  things  that  ever  happened. 
From  nothing  to  all  in  all  went  the  peasant,  al- 
most in  the  turn  of  a  hand.    Other  Russians  might 

219 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

furnish  much  noise  and  hot-air  currents,  might 
parade  with  horrible  banners  and  rattle  conserva- 
tism with  many  threats.  This  Russian  alone  had 
power  to  decide  between  Bolshevic  and  Menshevic, 
wild-eyed  and  sane,  frantic  and  reasonable;  and 
what  he  said  was  in  effect  law. 

He  was  greater  than  the  Czar  ever  was ;  he  was 
not  in  the  old  phrase,  "  tempered  by  assassina- 
tion, ' '  nor  restrained  by  anything  else. 

He  voted.  He  was  the  vast  majority.  He  was 
the  boss.  And  he  lived  in  a  down-at-the-heel  vil- 
lage, where  you  would  think  gray  tones  and 
dreariness  would  beat  Life  flat,  but  where  in  spite 
of  all  he  had  learned  practical  wisdom  of  that 
same  Life  and  been  tutored  in  strange  ways  up 
to  the  job  Fate  had  now  laid  upon  him. 

In  America  there  was  a  settled  conviction  that 
democracy  was  thrust  suddenly  upon  Russia,  that 
she  had  never  heard  of  it  before,  that  she  was  not 
at  all  prepared  for  it  (as  we  were,  for  instance) 
and  that  hence  democracy  in  Russia  would  prove 
impossible  until,  after  a  long  period  of  tutelage, 
the  people  should  have  been  raised  to  somewhere 
near  our  own  high  plane  of  development. 

This  was  a  grand  belief  and  full  of  comfort.  It 
absolved  us  from  active  interest  in  the  Russian 

220 


THE  PEASANT 

struggle  or  the  least  support  of  it,  and  enabled  us 
with  a  sweet  content  to  go  back  to  our  balance- 
sheets,  our  automobiles  and  our  golf  links.  Since 
Russia  was  unfit  for  democracy  anyway,  why 
bother  about  her? 

Yet  the  historian  will  have  it  to  observe  that 
the  idea  of  democracy  as  any  novelty  to  the  Rus- 
sians was  merely  preposterous.  If  they  were  not 
fitted  for  it  neither  were  we  nor  any  other  people 
on  earth,  and  mankind  went  all  wrong  when  it  be- 
gan to  throw  overboard  its  kings. 

By  faith  and  practice  the  Russians  were  among 
the  most  democratic  of  peoples  and  instead  of  be- 
ing thumb-hand  novices  about  democracy  they  had 
had  much  training  in  it. 

Where?  In  that  same  ugly  village.  It  had 
educated  a  Russia  that  was  without  books  and  al- 
most without  schools  or  a  public  press.  It  had 
taken  the  place  of  newspapers  and  telegraph.  It 
had  scattered  information  and  broadened  the  gen- 
eral mind.  To  people  that  could  not  read  it  had 
taught  the  rudiments  of  human  knowledge.  And 
above  everything  else,  it  had  stirred  in  them  their 
innate  love  of  liberty  and  made  democracy  more 
than  a  creed  or  a  languid,  remote  and  semi-fluid 

221 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

faith  as  often  with  us.  Seemingly,  it  had  made 
democracy  in  them  a  passion. 

And  again  we  ought  to  be  slow  to  look  down 
upon  the  dismal  Russian  village,  because  in 
respect  to  the  future  of  the  race  and  the  actuali- 
ties of  life  the  Russian  village  might  very  well 
look  down  upon  the  American  farmhouse. 

Either  as  an  invention  or  an  instrument  of  civi- 
lization, the  village  is  immeasurably  the  superior 
of  the  farmhouses.  Society  in  the  village  may  not 
be  such  as  would  stir  enthusiasm  in  Park  Lane 
and  upper  Fifth  Avenue,  but  it  is  at  least  society. 
Men  and  women  meet  and  exchange  ideas,  rub 
mind  against  mind,  divide  information,  share  and 
share  alike,  put  into  a  common  fund  whatever  wit 
may  be  in  fifty  minds,  whatever  of  life  may  have 
been  seen  by  a  hundred  eyes,  whatever  may  have 
been  experienced  by  fifty  souls. 

In  the  remote  farmhouse,  shut  off  from  the 
world  of  men,  marooned  on  a  prairie  island,  sin- 
gle couples  or  single  families  lose  all  faculty  for 
united  effort  and,  driven  in  upon  themselves,  be- 
come the  most  hopeless  individualists  on  earth. 
The  thing  works  out  as  might  be  expected.  Here, 
for  instance,  is  this  great  cooperative  movement 
that  in  the  last  twenty  years  has  remade  life  for 

222 


TIIE  PEASANT 

millions  in  Europe.  Those  immense  and  highly 
successful  cooperative  societies  of  Belgium  (be- 
fore she  was  bludgeoned),  France,  Italy,  Switzer- 
land, Serbia,  have  cheapened  the  cost  of  living  and 
raised  its  standard  until  they  have  become  among 
the  greatest  benefactors  of  the  race.  But  observe 
that  while  in  Russia  cooperation  has  been  a  con- 
spicuous success,  in  America,  after  a  thousand 
well-meant  attempts  and  many  ingenious  devices, 
it  remains  to  a  certain  extent  a  failure.  Russians, 
graduates  of  the  village  scheme  of  life,  naturally 
cooperate;  Americans,  graduates  of  the  farm- 
house scheme  of  life,  naturally  do  not.  Every 
man  for  himself — it  is  the  sure  reflex  of  solitary 
living  and  the  farmhouse. 

Or,  to  take  another  illustration,  it  might  be 
profitable  to  consider  how  far  the  United  States, 
before  the  war,  lagged  behind  the  rest  of  the 
world  in  the  development  of  communal  enter- 
prises and  the  communal  spirit  that,  until  scat- 
tered by  the  Iron  Fist,  was  beginning  to  show  a 
new  era  in  the  affairs  of  men. 

In  Russia  there  are  no  solitary  farmhouses. 
The  farmers  always  live  in  villages.  An  Anglo- 
Saxon  seems  to  like  to  get  away  from  his  fellows ; 
the  Russian  demands  their  company.    As  a  rule, 

223 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

the  land  the  Eussian  farmer  tills  lies  close  beside 
the  village  where  he  lives,  but  near  or  far,  he  goes 
forth  to  his  day's  work  from  his  village  home  and 
returns  thither  when  the  day's  work  is  done. 

Amusement  in  that  village,  the  interchange 
with  his  neighbors  of  ideas  and  experiences,  the 
gossip  and  chatter,  the  disputes  and  arguments, 
may  not  be  very  exciting,  but  they  have  been  some- 
thing for  him  to  look  forward  to  all  day,  and 
enough,  when  they  come,  to  prod  his  mind  out  of 
the  ruts  of  drudgery  and  sometimes  to  spur  it  into 
the  health  of  continued  activity. 

Where  the  system  of  communal  land  ownership 
prevails  in  Eussia  the  peasant  does  not  own  the 
land  he  tills  because  all  the  land  there  belongs  to 
the  community  of  which  he  is  a  member,  but  he 
may  own  the  house  in  which  he  lives,  the  tools 
with  which  he  works,  the  horses,  cows  and  chick- 
ens in  his  barnyard.  He  shelters  his  livestock  un- 
pleasantly near  to  his  own  place  of  abiding,  but 
that  is  all  one  to  him.  He  is  used  to  it,  as  his  for- 
bears were  before  him.  Yet  he  is  not  a  dirty  per- 
son, as  doubtless  you  have  been  led  to  believe ;  no 
more  dirty  than  he  is  stupid.  Customs  differ 
greatly  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  but  you 
often  find  in  Eussia  the  village  bathhouse  as  much 

224 


THE  PEASANT 

of  an  institution  as  the  village  church  or  shrine 
and  more  regularly  visited,  while  some  of  the 
peasants'  homes  have  their  own  bathing  appa- 
ratus. Apparatus  is  the  apt  word,  for  the  bath  is 
always  of  steam ;  that  is  what  a  bath  means  to  a 
Eussian.  He  gets  upon  a  shelf  in  a  room  dense 
with  hot  steam  and  there  sweats  and  is  rubbed 
with  twigs  and  scrubbed  in  hot  water  and  in  cold, 
and  goes  home  clean  and  content  maybe  for  Sun- 
day, for  Saturday  is  a  favorite  bathing  occasion. 
In  the  old  days  he  used  frequently  to  mark  the 
day,  religious  or  festal,  by  getting  drunk  on  it — 
there  is  no  doubt  of  that,  although  he  was  never 
so  bad  as  he  was  painted.  But  in  1917  all  that 
had  been  changed  with  the  rest.  Prohibition  came 
easily  in  Russia ;  the  Government  had  a  monopoly 
of  the  rum  trade  and  cut  it  off  with  one  blow  of 
the  ax  by  going  out  of  the  business.  No  doubt 
there  was  some  illicit  distilling  at  the  time  of  our 
visit  but  it  could  not  be  very  extensive,  because  I 
circulated  among  all  kinds  of  people  and  saw  only 
two  men  under  the  influence  of  liquor.  After  all, 
are  there  any  fixed  habits  or  customs?  Vodka 
was  supposed  to  be  indispensable  to  the  average 
Russian,  yet  in  a  day  it  was  swept  away  from  him 
and  he  did  not  revolt.    Today  he  doen't  care;  he 

225 


tJNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

seems  to  have  forgotten  all  about  it ;  and  no  mat- 
ter what  else  may  happen  in  Russia  it  seems  a 
safe  prediction  that  vodka  will  never  be  voted 
back.  The  women  are  against  it,  and  unless  an 
exterior  power  totally  destroys  the  new  democ- 
racy in  Eussia  the  women  will  vote.  That  is  one 
weighty  consideration.  But  even  if  there  were 
only  male  suffrage  I  doubt  that  it  would  ever  be 
possible  to  arouse  any  enthusiasm  for  the  return 
of  the  rum  fiend.  He  seem;  to  have  gone  into  a 
permanent  exile. 

When  I  was  there  the  people  were  not  drinking 
beer  in  the  place  of  vodka,  nor  yet  wine,  per- 
fumery, wood  alcohol,  varnish  nor  any  other  of 
the  substitutes  that  it  was  predicted  of  the  wise 
men  they  would  fly  to.  There  is  no  native  wine 
except  some  of  high  price  and  exquisite  quality 
that  is  made  in  the  Crimea,  and  as  for  beer,  that 
was  bowled  out  with  the  Eum  Fiend.  In  place  of 
these  the  favorite  drink  is  kevass,  a  beverage 
made  from  rye  bread  and  often  extremely  good. 
It  looks  something  like  light  beer  but  usually  is 
without  alcohol.  There  is  no  punch  in  kevass, 
but  a  man  does  not  go  home  and  beat  up  his  fam- 
ily after  he  has  been  drinking  it;  that  is  one  com- 
pensation. 

226 


THE  PEASANT 

Of  course  you  can  find  all  manner  of  fault  with 
the  peasant  if  you  wish  to;  there  is  material 
enough.  It  is  true  that  he  is  not  eager  for  fresh 
air.  The  temperature  in  winter  may  sink  as  low 
as  60°  or  70°  below  zero  and  he  has  no  yearning 
for  much  of  it.  Every  window  in  his  log  house 
is  double;  the  cracks  all  around  it  are  conscien- 
tiously caulked  with  a  vegetable  fiber  like  wool. 
In  some  windows  is  a  small  hinged  pane  that  can 
be  opened,  but  seldom  is ;  except  for  this  the  thing 
is  air-tight.  The  logs  in  the  walls  are  trimmed 
down  much  closer  than  in  any  log  house  we  know, 
and  the  surfaces  are  trimmed  until  they  seem  to  fit 
perfectly,  but  even  this  bare  chance  of  a  crack  is 
caulked  and  plastered.  The  door  is  heavy,  tightly 
fitted  and  seldom  opened.  If  a  breath  of  fresh  air 
gets  into  that  house  it  must  steal  in  as  an  enemy 
and  take  the  family  unaware. 

This  close  atmosphere  is  overheated  with  a  huge 
brick  oven  on  the  top  of  which  sleep  the  old  people 
and  the  children.  Sometimes  the  temperature 
stands  at  80°  or  more ;  75°  is  common.  You  would 
think  they  would  all  die  of  colds  or  tuberculosis, 
but  they  do  not ;  there  seems  to  be  a  link  out  of  the 
fresh-air  theory  when  it  comes  to  Eussia.  Tuber- 
culosis is  worse  in  many  a  country  where  ventila- 

227 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

tion  is  much  farther  advanced,  and  while  infant 
mortality  is  shockingly  high  and  the  death-rate  in 
Petrograd  greater  than  in  London,  the  peasant's 
average  of  health,  except  in  one  respect,  may  be 
called  good. 

The  exception  belongs  to  the  old  system  and 
helps  to  indict  it  in  a  way  I  shall  speak  of  later. 
Like  the  generality  of  Russian  people,  the  peasant 
was  susceptible  to  diseases  of  nervous  origin. 
These,  great  doctors  found,  were  the  products  of 
worry,  care  and  depression,  and  in  turn,  these 
black  demons  flocked  in  the  shadow  of  the  terror 
that  lay  across  the  land. 

The  obvious  reason  why,  even  in  the  old  days, 
the  peasant,  whether  ill  or  well,  was  of  sturdy 
frame,  was  that  for  centuries  his  tribe  had  been 
well  nourished.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  have 
little  meat  and  a  narrowly  limited  dietary  other- 
wise, Russian  countrymen  seem  to  live  rather  well 
and,  considering  the  poor  materials  they  have,  to 
be  the  world's  premium  cooks.  They  can  take  a 
handful  of  cabbage  or  potatoes  or  something  and 
make  soups  that  are  dreams  of  delight;  of  their 
simplest  dishes  they  will  make  something  appetiz- 
ing and  attractive. 

I  have  gone  aside  to  these  remarks  because  we 
228 


THE  PEASANT 

are  so  liberal  of  our  pity  of  the  poor,  half-starved 
Russian  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  is  typically 
of  physical  might  and  ruddy  vitality.  Also  be- 
cause it  pertains,  after  all,  to  my  subject.  So- 
cial progress  demands  full  stomachs,  and  I  was 
convinced  that  the  outlook  in  Russia  would  not  be 
half  so  good  if  the  people  were  not  so  full-blooded. 

We  can  never  rid  ourselves  of  the  notion  that 
an  illiterate  person  must  necessarily  be  both  dull 
and  uninformed.  Yet  if  we  were  to  teach  to 
an  illiterate  all  the  contents  of  any  book  he  would 
know  as  much  about  it  as  an  average  reader,  and 
might  easily  make  a  better  use  of  it.  The  Russian 
villagers  were  often  illiterate ;  they  seldom  saw  a 
newspaper  and  until  recent  years  seldom  had  a 
school ;  but  they  sensed  something  of  what  was  go- 
ing on  in  the  world  and  had  even  some  outlines 
of  rudimentary  knowledge,  because  the  village 
was  school  and  newspaper. 

The  villages  were  so  near  together  that  news 
and  information  went  swiftly  and  easily  from  one 
to  another.  Say  a  traveler  arrived  at  Polosk  at 
eight  o'clock  bearing  news  that  a  great  fire  had  de- 
stroyed San  Francisco.  By  nine  o'clock  someone 
would  slip  over  to  Tomolosk,  a  mile  further  up  the 
valley,  and  tell  the  folks  there,  and  then  someone 

229 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

from  Tomolosk  would  pass  it  along  to  Levolf,  and 
by  nightfall  all  the  villages  in  the  valley  would 
have  heard  of  the  disaster  and  the  tongues  would 
be  clacking  like  mill-wheels. 

It  might  not  be  wholly  accurate  information, 
but  it  would  contain  the  germs  of  knowledge  and 
thought ;  and  ceaseless  discussion  of  it  sharpened 
the  wits  and  schooled  the  tongue. 

Similarly  about  other  things.  Suppose  a  school 
to  be  opened  in  one  of  the  larger  villages.  More 
pupils  drank  at  its  fountains  than  could  ever  sit 
within  its  walls,  I  can  assure  you. 

The  village  taught  the  people  to  talk,  which  is 
the  Eussian  national  game.  Eussians  are  the  mas- 
ter talkers  of  the  world.  The  vocabulary  of  the 
average  Eussian  peasant  is  three  times  as  large 
as  the  vocabulary  of  the  average  toiler  of  any 
other  nation,  and  about  twice  as  large  and  four 
times  as  effective  as  the  vocabulary  of  the  aver- 
age member  of  Congress.  The  Eussian 's  fluency 
and  readiness  of  speech  are  amazing ;  often  he  can 
talk  on  for  hours  without  hesitating  for  a  word 
or  struggling  overhard  to  get  his  ideas  into  clothes 
to  fit  them. 

He  learned  how  in  the  village. 

The  village,  also,  is  responsible  for  the  extraor- 
230 


THE  PEASANT 

dinary  development  of  peasant  industries,  at  the 
produce  of  which  all  visitors  stand  amazed. 

Russian  winters  have  long  nights,  short  hours 
of  daylight  and  grim,  menacing  skies.  Men  seem 
driven  together  in  such  conditions  and  compelled 
to  some  kind  of  indoor  work  for  ease  of  mind.  A 
group  of  peasants  sits  in  a  row  doing  two  things, 
gabbling  and  wood-carving.  The  first  man  cuts 
from  the  block  a  straight  piece  of  wood  two  inches 
wide,  an  inch  and  a  half  thick,  six  inches  long,  and 
passes  it  thus  to  Number  2. 

Number  2  cuts  in  the  sides  of  it  indentations 
half  an  inch  deep,  three  inches  long,  and  passes  it 
thus  to  Number  3. 

Number  3  cuts  the  edges  round  and  makes  a 
handle  and  passes  it  thus  to  Number  4. 

Number  4  hollows  out  one  side  near  the  end  and 
rounds  off  the  other  and  passes  it  thus  to  Num- 
ber 5. 

Number  5  covers  it  with  varnish  and  lays  it 
away  to  dry. 

It  is  a  wooden  spoon. 

Meantime,  as  the  work  of  the  hands  is  more  or 
less  mechanical,  it  interferes  nothing  with  the  na- 
tional game,  and  conversation  pours  through  that 
place  in  a  ceaseless  tide.    Yet  you  are  not  to  infer 

231 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

that  in  the  old  days  it  was  breezy  conversation 
nor  even  cheerful,  always.  The  Russian  does 
not  easily  get  far  from  his  native  melancholy. 
And  you  are  not  to  suppose  that  if  then  the  talk 
flowed  amply  the  talkers  ever  forgot  the  fear  that 
lay  on  all  hearts  or  that  they  touched  upon  the 
things  forbidden.  There  were  spies  in  every  vil- 
lage as  in  every  city,  and  from  every  doorway 
the  road  to  Siberia  could  be  easily  seen,  the  road 
of  blood  and  tears. 

The  peasent  women  are  busy,  too.  They  take 
a  handful  of  wool  and  spin  it  into  a  shawl  as 
light  as  gossamer,  glistening  like  snow  and  so 
soft  one  can  put  it  into  a  teacup  and  take  it  out 
unwrinkled. 

They  make  amazing  things  out  of  lace.  I  never 
mastered  the  names  of  these  devices,  but  the  fem- 
inine world  seems  to  be  always  moved  at  the  sight 
of  them  to  rhapsodical  delight,  which  I  assume  to 
be  sufficient  evidence  of  their  worth. 

They  take  wheat  straws,  these  peasants,  and 
color  them  and  then  weave  them  into  dainty  bas- 
kets and  jewel-cases  widely  celebrated  for  artistic 
design  and  color  scheme. 

They  take  the  inner  bark  of  the  white  birch  and 
232 


THE  PEASANT 

make  of  it  stout  valises,  suit-cases  and  traveling- 
bags. 

They  become  expert  metal  workers  and  turn  out 
gewgaws  like  belt  buckles  and  that  sort  of  thing. 

They  make  shoes  from  bark. 

They  make  ingenious  toys  and  paint  them  hand- 
somely. 

They  can  carve  in  wood  almost  anything  that 
was  ever  carved  in  it  and  weave  in  wool  almost 
anything  that  ever  was  woven. 

Many  of  them  reveal  a  natural  talent  for  paint- 
ing, and  without  instruction  paint  native  land- 
scapes and  village  scenes. 

They  can  sing,  sometimes  like  angels  and  some- 
times not,  but  always  well,  and  they  can  dance. 
Russian  church  music,  of  course,  far  excels  all 
other  music  of  the  kind;  everybody  knows  that; 
and  the  folksongs  seem  almost  as  remarkable. 
When  it  comes  to  dancing,  the  Russian  peasant 
dance  seems  to  merit  the  praise  it  gets  because  it 
often  has  humor  and  a  story  as  well  as  grace  and 
rhythm. 

After  one  has  contemplated  the  statistics  of 
that  development  of  Russian  cooperation  of  which 
I  have  spoken,  and  has  grasped  the  fact  that  most 
of  it  is  of  peasant  origin  and  direction,  the  men- 

233 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

ace  of  peasant  ignorance  and  incompetence  seems 
to  have  less  substance.     So  soon  as  the  Revolu- 
tion had  set  free  the  minds  and  souls  of  men,  co- 
operation, which  had  always  been  strong  in  Rus- 
sia, went  forward  with  new  speed.     On  July  1, 
1914,  there  were  in  Russia  30,000  local  coopera- 
tive societies  of  all  kinds ;  by  July  1,  1917,  those 
had  grown  to  50,000,  with  an  estimated  member- 
ship of  close  to  15,000,000.    Suppose  each  member 
to  represent  a  household,  which  is  a  fair  estimate, 
and  each  Russian  household  to  have  the  average 
number  of  persons  that  prevails  in  other  countries, 
which  is  certainly  not  too  much  to  allow,  nearly 
one-half  of  the  total  population  of  Russia  was  par- 
ticipating in  the  benefits  of  cooperation  at  a  time 
when  it  was  all  but  impossible  to  make  a  co- 
operative society  in  America  survive  for  a  year. 

There  are  in  Russia  4,000  artels,  or  coopera- 
tive societies  of  workingmen,  formed  to  handle 
the  products  of  the  domiciliary  industries. 

There  are  about  6,000  farmers'  cooperative  so> 
cieties  whose  functions  are  to  buy  the  things  farm 
ers  need  and  sell  the  farmers'  produce  on  a  co- 
operative basis. 

There  are  more  than  20,000  Consumers'  Pur- 
chasing societies,  operating  stores  mostly  in  the 

234 


THE  PEASANT 

villages,  although  in  Moscow  there  is  one  such  so- 
ciety that  has  65,000  members.  These  organiza- 
tions began  to  be  formidable  only  after  the  unsuc- 
cessful revolution  of  1905,  when  the  peasants  were 
stirred  by  their  defeat  to  make  unusual  efforts  to 
improve  their  condition  and  to  enlarge  their  re- 
sources. 

There  are  about  16,000  cooperative  Savings, 
Loan  and  Credit  Associations.  Of  these  the  Credit 
Associations  among  the  peasants  have  done  a 
most  useful  work  and  grown  far  beyond  the  origi- 
nal lines  of  their  endeavors.  They  now  buy  all 
kinds  of  machinery  and  supplies  to  sell  to  their 
members  on  the  instalment  plan,  lend  money  to 
their  members  to  handle  the  crops,  assist  in  mar- 
keting products  and  act  as  business  agents  and 
functionaries. 

There  is  in  Siberia  one  Union  of  Creameries  As- 
sociations that  controls  on  a  cooperative  basis  the 
products  of  more  than  1500  creameries  and  oper- 
ates 1050  stores  for  the  benefit  of  its  members. 

There  is  another  in  Eastern  Siberia  that  has 
233  local  associations  in  its  organization  and  in 
1917  did  a  business  of  150,000,000  rubles,  equiva- 
lent in  ordinary  times  to  $75,000,000.  There  are 
two  other  similar  associations  in  Siberia  almost  as 

*95 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

large.  Before  the  war  they  maintained  a  sales  of- 
fice so  far  away  as  London. 

The  Moscow  Union  of  Consumers '  Societies,  an 
organization  for  wholesale  supplies,  had  in  1898 
67  local  societies  as  its  members.  In  1915  these 
had  increased  to  1,700  and  in  1917  to  2,500.  It 
operates  flour  mills,  tobacco  factories,  fish  salting 
establishments,  shoe  factories  and  other  enter- 
prises. 

The  cooperative  societies  of  Moscow  maintain 
a  bank  that  began  in  1912  with  a  capital  of  1,000,- 
000  rubles  and  has  now  a  capital  of  10,000,000 
rubles  and  deposits  and  assets  of  80,000,000.  It 
did  a  business  in  1917  of  3,000,000,000  rubles.  In 
1917  this  bank  contracted  for  125,000  harvesting 
machines  and  18,000  tons  of  binder  twine. 

The  cooperative  societies  are  generally  organ- 
ized into  district  associations  and  these  into  na- 
tional associations.  Throughout  all  these  vast 
and  complicated  associations  is  displayed  an  ex- 
traordinary talent  for  coordinated  effort  and 
union,  for  no  other  country  in  the  world  makes  in 
cooperation  relatively  as  good  a  showing.  And 
yet  I  have  heard  a  Senator  of  the  United  States 
declare  that  the  Russians  have  so  little  capacity 

236 


THE  PEASANT 

for  organized  effort  that  it  is  useless  to  expect 
they  can  ever  make  a  nation  of  themselves. 

For  the  most  part  these  gigantic  distributing 
machines  have  been  built  primarily  out  of  the  in- 
telligence and  persistence  of  the  peasant.  The 
facts  about  them  must  certainly  reveal  him  in  a 
light  very  different  from  any  in  which  we  have 
ever  been  accustomed  to  see  him. 

Yet  the  other  notions  about  typical  peasant  life, 
of  which  I  spoke  in  the  first  chapter,  are  all  but 
universal  and  for  this  generation  probably  im- 
movable. Attempts  to  change  them  have  even 
been  resented,  as  if  they  were  some  form  of  re- 
ligion. It  would  seem  that  a  little  philosophical 
reflection  would  show  to  almost  anyone  that 
changes  in  the  peasant's  situation  had  worked 
great  changes  in  his  activities  and  influence.  For 
instance,  when  slavery  existed  in  Russia  it  was 
gross,  cruel,  primitive,  and  as  frank  as  a  pair  of 
leg-irons.  So  many  cattle,  so  many  serfs,  so  many 
swine,  was  the  owner's  inventory,  viewing  all  alike 
and  selling  one  as  indifferently  as  another.  Close 
over  the  serf's  bent  back  hung  the  whip,  and  few 
fields  were  tilled  or  roads  made  except  to  the  tune 
of  its  lashings.  That  was  but  sixty  years  ago. 
The  first  generation  of  freedom  bore  still  the 

237 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

heavy  stamp  of  all  this  accursed  system  and  had 
to  bear  it ;  not  with  one  leap  could  f  reedmen  come 
to  the  full  stature  of  the  free;  and  while  we  do 
not  know  it,  the  peasant  that  we  cling  to  as  the 
type  is  nothing  but  the  first  rebound  from  slavery. 

It  was  the  time  when  Russian  literature  burst 
upon  the  world  in  its  awe-compelling  power  and  it 
carried  with  it  this  accepted  and  still  popular 
style  of  peasant  portraiture. 

But  the  present  generation  is  different.  Even 
before  the  Revolution,  the  peasants  we  had  al- 
ways thought  so  ignorant  and  stupid  were 
publishing  peasants'  newspapers  filled  with  clever 
writing,  manifesting  the  first  signs  of  a  huge 
cultural  revolt  and  making  some  exceedingly  good 
poetry.  And  of  course,  at  the  sound  of  the  Revo- 
lution, all  this  burst  forth  without  restraint  and 
he  must  be  a  dull  observer  that  cannot  see  a  new 
era. 

It  is  still  the  fashion  in  this  country,  and  prob- 
ably will  long  be  so,  to  make  much  of  the  illiteracy 
of  the  Russian  people.  After  a  time  I  gathered 
a  shrewd  impression  that  if  the  Russians  had 
other  ideas  about  an  ideal  social  state  their  re- 
ported illiteracy  would  have  been  far  less  con- 
spicuous.   Pleas  for  social  justice  can  be  easily 

238 


THE  PEASANT 

discounted  if  they  can  be  assumed  to  come  from 
some  appalling  slough  of  ignorance  and  illiteracy. 
As  to  the  ignorance,  that  is  a  term  indefinite  and 
relative.  Ignorance  of  book  lore  is  great  and 
widespread.  Lack  of  information  common  in 
other  countries  is  also  very  extensive  and  a  great 
evil.  These  things  could  not  be  otherwise ;  reflect 
upon  the  immensity  of  the  country,  the  lack  of 
an  adequate  railroad  system,  the  miry  roads;  re- 
flect upon  the  system  of  popular  education,  so  new 
and  ill-established.  I  would  not  regard  these  ter- 
rible handicaps  lightly.  But  the  point  I  make  is 
that  considering  all  his  burdensome  disadvantages 
the  intelligence  of  the  typical  peasant  is  remark- 
able and  may  justly  give  us  hope  and  confidence ; 
for  his  mind  is  alert  and  his  capacity  proven. 

As  to  the  actual  present-day  conditions  of  illit- 
eracy, nobody  knows,  but  while  we  still  hold  to 
the  traditional  80  per  cent  of  illiteracy  for  all 
Eussia  it  is  plain  enough  that  this  is  absurd. 
Peasant  newspapers  are  not  published  for  illiter- 
ates, which  is  but  one  of  the  many  facts  that  show 
the  vast  changes  of  the  last  fifteen  years.  Almost 
every  considerable  village  has  come  to  have  its 
school.  Education,  which  used  to  be  the  exclusive 
right  of  the  few,  is  on  the  way  to  be  universal  if 

239 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

Russian  democracy  is  allowed  to  work  out  its  own 
destiny. 

This  chapter  of  history  might  well  be  called  The 
Story  of  Foolish  Rulers  that  Thought  they  Could 
Stop  Progress,  because  in  the  most  wonderful  way 
the  things  the  old  rotten  Government  thought 
would  surely  perpetuate  the  old  system  were  the 
things  that  pulled  it  down.  The  Revolution  of 
1905,  for  instance:  that  was  suppressed  (on  the 
Kaiser's  advice)  with  an  iron  will  and  the  most 
horrible  cruelty,  that  it  might  be  a  memorable  and 
lasting  example  to  all,  but  it  helped  tremendously 
to  force  the  Government's  hand  about  education, 
and  education  turned  out  to  be  autocracy's  dead- 
liest foe.  Even  the  dull,  feeble-minded,  cruelty- 
loving  Czar  is  said  to  have  been  impressed,  after 
1905,  with  the  idea  that  the  old  policy  of  keeping 
the  people  in  ignorance  would  have  to  be  shifted, 
and  when  he  did  that  he  cut  the  mainstay  of  his 
throne. 

Today  any  visitor  can  see  that  Russian  illiter- 
acy, although  still  far  too  great,  is  no  longer  over- 
whelming, as  it  once  was.  In  proportion  to  the 
population,  more  daily  newspapers  are  published 
in  Petrograd,  for  example,  than  in  any  other  city 
in  the  world.    Some  of  the  journals  of  Petrograd, 

240 


THE  PEASANT 

Moscow  and  Odessa  have  huge  circulations,  one 
of  those  in  Moscow  ranking  within  the  first  ten  of 
newspapers  everywhere.  Newspaper  reading  is 
visibly  a  common  habit.  As  I  have  pointed  out  be- 
fore, there  is  the  significant  evidence  of  the  Na- 
tional Council,  which,  elected  by  all  the  people 
of  all  Russia  and  representing  them,  contained 
among  its  830  delegates  only  twenty  illiterates. 
Once  so  many  railroad  men  were  unable  to  read 
that  the  freight-cars  carried  on  their  sides  picto- 
rial instructions  for  coupling.  Recently  no  such 
illustrations  have  been  needed.  Finally,  most  of 
the  illiterates  of  this  day  are  thirty-five  years  old 
or  more.  The  younger  element  generally  can 
read. 

The  village  organization  was  often  a  vehicle  for 
revolutionary  propaganda  and  the  revolutionary 
propaganda  taught  the  peasant  many  things  be- 
sides revolution.  If  the  whole  story  could  be  writ- 
ten as  it  really  happened,  it  would  leave  all  fiction 
in  the  world  cold  for  interest.  Every  hour  of  a 
propagandist's  life  throbbed  with  fierce  excite- 
ment; he  was  bent  upon  outwitting  and  outma- 
neuvering  the  spies  that  surrounded  him,  but  he 
knew  that  any  moment  they  might  break  through 
upon  him  and  hurl  him  to  the  horrible  living  death 

241 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

of  exile.  As  he  stealthily  spread  his  doctrine,  he 
wove  into  it  the  outlines  of  the  long,  upward  strug- 
gle of  the  human  cause.  The  story  went  slowly 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  from  village  to  village,  just 
as  the  news  of  the  San  Francisco  fire  spread,  per- 
haps ;  but  it  went  until  a  large  part  of  the  mass 
had  a  smattering  of  it  and  therein  had  also  the 
germs  of  education. 

Meantime  the  Government,  with  all  its  illimita- 
ble power  and  ruthless  cruelty,  stood  by  to  pre- 
vent this  work.  It  surrounded  Eussia  with  a  wall 
to  keep  out  the  literature  it  feared,  and  lo!  the 
substance  of  that  literature  seeped  under  or  float- 
ed over  or  crept  through.  One  of  the  historic  epi- 
sodes it  was  especially  resolved  to  bar  from  the 
country  was  the  story  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion. All  revolutions  looked  bad  to  the  dull,  blun- 
dering Government,  but  for  sufficient  reasons 
this  looked  the  worst.  It  allowed  John  Fiske-'s 
other  historical  writings  to  be  translated  and  cir- 
culated, but  a  strict  ban  was  on  his  account  of  our 
Revolution.  Yet  the  story  went  by  the  village-to- 
village  telegraph,  and  millions  of  peasants  that 
could  not  read  knew  the  substance  of  the  Ameri- 
can struggle  and  honored  the  name  of  George 
Washington. 

242 


THE  PEASANT 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  there  is  no  stopping 
of  these  things ;  the  whole  force  of  the  great  Rus- 
sian Government  was  put  forth  to  check  democ- 
racy, and  democracy  grew  and  spread  and  sprang 
up  in  that  Government's  very  face. 

In  1917,  the  dream  of  the  Russian  Republic, 
that  was  to  be,  included  education  free,  universal, 
compulsory.  Also  it  was  to  be  so  arranged  that 
the  poorest  should  have  as  much  chance  at  it,  in 
even  its  highest  forms,  as  the  wealthy  have  now. 
Education  bulwarks  democracy  and  democracy  ad- 
vances education,  and  these  were,  after  all,  the 
first  ripened  fruits  of  the  iron  oppression  that  the 
Kaiser  so  much  commended  to  his  friend  the  Czar. 
What  was  the  use? 

When  a  nation  starts  upon  the  road  to  free- 
dom, even  the  worst  conditions  serve  only  in  the 
end  to  help  it  along.  Slavery,  for  instance.  Sla- 
very could  not  have  endured  in  Russia  more 
than  in  any  other  country.  And  yet  slavery  should 
never  have  been  abolished  if  the  autocratic  form 
of  government  was  to  live,  because  the  blow  that 
felled  Russian  slavery  dug  the  burying-place  of 
Russian  monarchy. 

Thus:  At  the  time  of  the  emancipation  vast 
areas  of  land  were  in  the  possession  of  the  State, 

243 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

which  is  to  say,  of  the  Czar.  Some  of  this  was 
tilled,  and  it  seems  strange  now  to  think  that  it 
was  tilled  by  slaves  that  the  State  owned ;  but  the 
greater  part  was  unproductive  and  so  remains  to 
this  day.  Outside  of  the  State  lands,  agricultural 
Russia  was  in  the  hands  of  the  nobles  and  great 
landowners,  who  were  also  the  slave-owners  and 
often  held  huge  estates. 

When  the  Government  abolished  slavery  in 
1861,  it  was  driven  without  any  will  of  its  own  to 
a  singular  act  of  justice.  Even  to  its  limited  intel- 
ligence the  fact  was  clear  enough  that  to  set  all 
these  millions  of  slaves  suddenly  free  and  to  pro- 
vide them  with  no  means  of  livelihood  would  pull 
down  a  great  disaster.  It  therefore  provided  that 
the  national  treasury  should  advance  to  them 
enough  money  to  buy  the  land  they  had  formerly 
tilled  as  serfs,  repayment  to  be  made  on  easy 
terms  in  forty-nine  years.  The  landlords  were 
brought  to  look  complacently  upon  this  scheme  by 
an  intricate  system  of  compensations  not  neces- 
sary to  be  described  here. 

In  the  case  of  serfs  that  had  been  held  by  the 
State,  grants  were  made  from  the  State  lands. 

The  Romanoffs  didn't  know  it,  but  they  were 
signing  themselves  out  of  their  jobs  when  they 

244 


THE  PEASANT 

adopted  such  a  reform.  It  begot  the  village  mir 
in  its  modern  shape  and  the  village  mir  begot  the 
Russian  Republic,  while  Citizen  Nicholas  Roman- 
off from  the  windows  of  an  indifferent  house  at 
Tobolsk  looked  out  upon  a  dreary  section  of  the 
country  he  used  to  rule. 

Mir  means  "world"  or  "union."  The  village 
mir  means  that  the  affairs  of  that  village  are  its 
world,  which  is  true  and  a  good  term.  The  mir  is 
an  old  institution  in  Russia,  but  since  the  rise  of 
absolutism  and  the  suppression  of  the  ancient 
freedom  it  had  become  largely  nominal.  The  re- 
form measures  now  revived  it  and  made  it  a  thing 
of  might. 

In  delivering  the  land  to  the  late  serfs  the  plan 
followed  was  that  all  the  serfs  that  had  belonged 
to  one  master  should  receive  in  common  all  of  the 
land  they  had  tilled  and  constitute  one  community, 
or  mir.  In  most  cases  the  village  and  all  the  land 
around  it  had  been  owned  by  one  nobleman  or 
seigneur.  The  new  arrangement  made  such  a  vil- 
lage of  potential  and  actual  democracy. 

It  had  land  to  control  and  business  to  transact. 

The  land  must  be  allotted  and  re-allotted  among 
the  peasant  proprietors,  all  of  whom,  as  I  have 
said,  lived  in  the  village  and  went  out  to  till  the 

245 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

fields.  Some  of  the  crops — as  hay,  for  instance — 
were  sometimes  harvested,  handled  and  marketed 
on  the  common  account.  The  security  of  the  vil- 
lage must  be  provided  for  and  its  affairs  regulated 
by  some  new  authority,  now  that  the  noble  or 
seigneur  had  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

Therefore  each  village  had  its  assembly,  in 
which  all  of  the  peasants  took  part  and  everything 
was  decided  by  majority  vote. 

In  other  words,  the  Romanoffs  lay  awake  o' 
nights  to  think  how  they  could  keep  out  the  demo- 
cratic camel  and  then  got  up  in  their  sleep  and 
seized  the  patient  creature  by  the  neck  and  ears 
and  dragged  him  all  the  way  into  the  tent. 

Exactly  that,  because  here  was  as  good  a  school 
of  practical  democracy  as  ever  was  invented  and 
there  was  hardly  an  hour  when  it  was  not  at  work. 
Each  village  elected  a  village  elder,  or  mayor, 
who  represented  the  community  in  its  dealings 
with  the  national  Government,  collected  the  taxes 
and  looked  after  the  local  improvements.  Taxes 
were  assessed  on  the  village  in  a  lump  sum  and 
split  among  the  peasant  proprietors  by  the  assem- 
bly. In  respect  to  all  local  affairs  it  was  the  active 
authority.  The  villagers  met  and  discussed  their 
problems  with  much  freedom  so  long  as  they 

246 


THE  PEASANT 

breathed  nothing  of  disloyalty  or  revolt,  and  de- 
cided each  issue  by  a  majority  vote.  It  was 
plainly  a  good  way  to  decide  things.  But  the  prob- 
lems of  the  nation  were  not  discussed  and  decided 
in  any  such  way.  They  were  decided  by  a  half- 
witted person  sitting  upon  a  throne  in  Petrograd 
and  chiefly  distinguished  for  a  facility  in  pulling 
his  mustache  and  listening  to  a  depraved  impostor 
that  called  himself  a  monk  and  was  none. 

Such  a  condition  could  no  more  last  than  tow 
could  last  in  the  burning  pit.  It  was  not  in  na- 
ture, it  was  impossible.  If  the  people  were  going 
to  rule  about  their  local  affairs  they  were  some 
day  going  to  rule  no  less  about  their  national  af- 
fairs.   And  that  is  exactly  what  happened. 

The  leaven  of  democracy  brought  in  by  the  re- 
vived and  freshened  mir  was  pushed  along  about 
the  same  time  by  the  revival  of  another  old  in- 
stitution, the  assembly  of  the  volost,  or  canton. 
The  village  assemblies  elected  delegates  to  the 
cantonal  assembly. 

Three  years  later,  1864,  the  same  idea  was  far- 
ther advanced  when  the  zemstvo  was  created. 
One  business  of  the  zemstvo  was  to  foster  the  in- 
terests of  agriculture;  another,  legally,  was  to 
tamper  with  the  tax  schedules.    After  it  had  gone 

247 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

on  some  years  merrily  loading  the  taxes  upon  the 
peasants  and  slipping  them  from  the  shoulders  of 
the  wealthy,  a  different  order  of  mind  appeared  in 
it,  a  mind  with  wit  enough  to  perceive  that  you 
could  not  rob  the  producers  forever  without  im- 
poverishing the  nation  and  everybody  in  it.  Prince 
Luvof,  for  some  months  prime  minister  of  the 
provisional  government,  was  a  good  example  of 
this  type.  He  spent  many  years  in  zemstvo  work 
and  was  long  the  head  of  the  national  union  of 
zemstvos.  He  and  his  kind  went  early  to  the  task 
of  making  the  zemstvo  an  institution  that  should 
develop  the  interests  of  all  the  people  alike. 

Under  this  leadership,  the  zemstvo  introduced 
new  methods  in  peasant  agriculture  and  market- 
ing. It  greatly  developed  the  peasants '  industries 
I  have  spoken  of.  It  supported  cooperation.  It 
opened  stores  in  many  places  for  the  sale  of  peas- 
ants'  products.  It  started  their  exports.  It  en- 
couraged the  native  skill  and  artistic  sense  and 
was  on  the  way  greatly  to  improve  and  brighten 
every  feature  of  peasant  life  when  the  blight  of 
war  blew  upon  it. 

The  union  of  zemstvos,  a  body  whose  growing 
power  and  rapidly  expanding  field  even  the  cold- 
blooded  autocracy  was  forced  to   acknowledge, 

248 


THE  PEASANT 

turned  its  attention  to  the  war  and  the  condition 
of  the  troops,  and  was  able  to  bring  about  sub- 
stantial improvements.  It  maintained  hospitals, 
collected  and  forwarded  hospital  stores  and  at- 
tempted relief  for  the  monotony  of  soldiers'  lives 
when  troops  are  held  in  reserve,  as  were  most  of 
the  Russians. 

The  remade  and  freshened  mir  did  more  than 
to  drive  into  people's  heads  the  rudiments  of 
democratic  faith ;  it  taught  them  the  use  of  it.  The 
delegates  to  the  National  Council  that  with  their 
parliamentary  skill  and  facile  eloquence  so  aston- 
ished Western  visitors  were  graduates  of  the  mir. 
It  taught  them  how  public  business  may  be  trans- 
acted and  made  discussion  as  familiar  to  them  as 
the  handles  of  their  plows.  Nothing  is  more  demo- 
cratic anywhere ;  not  even  the  New  England  town- 
meeting,  which  the  mir  much  resembles. 

But  against  the  suggestion  of  the  Russian  peas- 
ant as  a  competent  soldier  of  democracy  there 
rises  always  that  picture  of  the  old  typical  peasant 
of  our  esteemed  fiction,  singing  with  unction  ' '  God 
Save  the  Czar"  and  doing  reverence  before  a  pic- 
ture of  the  "Little  Father."  How  touching  that 
used  to  be — to  those  of  us  that  have  a  strong 
slant  of  snobbery  still  in  the  blood!    Those  dear, 

249 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

simple-minded  peasants,  so  sweetly  loyal  to  their 
emperor ! 

All  this  we  may  now  well  forget,  or  retain  as  no 
more  than  the  artistry  and  literary  embroidery 
of  another  generation.  The  Russian  peasant  used 
to  fall  on  his  knees  before  the  Czar  and  very  like- 
ly have  on  his  walls  an  ikon  of  that  distinguished 
mustache  grower,  but  it  was  because  he  knew  the 
police  spy  was  watching  him  and  Siberia  loomed 
in  the  background. 

In  1917  the  Czar,  as  you  may  surmise  from  the 
adventures  of  his  private  car,  would  have  good 
reason  to  tremble  if  ever  he  fell  into  the  hands  of 
those  dear  peasants,  and  as  for  having  him  on 
their  backs  again,  they  would  as  soon  have  the 
devil. 

Prince  Paul  Troubetskoy  was  perfectly  right 
when  he  perpetrated  upon  the  old  regime  the  stu- 
pendous irony  of  all  sculpture  in  that  great  statue 
he  made  of  Czar  Alexander  the  Third.  It  stands 
in  the  square  before  the  principal  railroad  sta- 
tion and  commands  the  wondering  attention  of 
every  fresh  beholder,  for  in  all  the  wide  world 
is  nothing  like  it.  The  burly  figure  of  the  Czar 
appears  seated  menacingly  upon  a  huge,  ungainly, 
bit-champing  horse.    The  municipality  employed 

250 


THE  PEASANT 

Troubetskoy  to  create  a  work  of  art  in  honor  of 
the  dead  ruler,  and  he  made  one  that  will  not 
quickly  pass  from  human  memory.  And  after  he 
made  it  and  was  safe  in  Paris  he  might  have 
laughed  so  loudly  that  all  the  world  should  hear 
him. 

For  he  hr.d  deliberately  pictured  in  his  statue 
the  big,  coarse,  brutal  Czar  riding  the  Russian 
people,  holding  to  his  seat  by  the  sheer  force  of 
the  terror  he  created,  and  the  great  Russian  peo- 
ple, ridden,  but  never  consenting  to  be  ridden.  All 
the  words  of  all  the  tongues  of  all  mankind  could 
not  better  express  the  exact  situation. 

When  the  sculptor's  gigantic  sarcasm  dawned 
upon  them,  some  Russians  were  for  taking  the 
statue  down,  and  very  likely  that  would  have  been 
its  fate  but  for  the  Revolution.  It  will  not  come 
down  now.  It  will  stay  where  it  is,  the  final  me- 
morial of  a  dark  and  monstrous  era  that  has 
passed  from  the  world  like  a  hideous  dream. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  BOLSHEVIC 

"In  the  next  cage,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  you 
will  find  that  singular  beast,  the  fierce,  fiery,  man- 
eating  Bolshevic.  This  ferocious  creature  goes  to 
and  fro  upon  the  earth,  seeking  whom  he  may  de- 
vour, and  as  he  strides  along  upon  his  horrid  er- 
rand the  ground  shakes  beneath  his  tread,  he 
breathes  forth  fire  and  brimstone,  and  all  ani- 
mate nature  flees  in  terror  from  the  appalling 
sight. ' ' 

It  was  in  some  such  manner  as  this,  as  a  self- 
satisfied  showman  would  introduce  a  rare  novelty, 
that  many  newspaper  correspondents  in  the  fall 
of  1917  presented  to  the  public  this  new  terror  of 
the  nations,  dwelling  with  manifest  delight  upon 
the  strange  and  alarming  name  of  the  de- 
stroying monster.  Bolshevic — Bolshevic!  What 
is  a  Bolshevic?  Nobody  knew,  but  by  the  sound  of 
it,  something  awful.  When  to  this  vague  but  dis- 
concerting apparition  was  added  the  suggestion 
that  the  coming  of  the  Bolshevic  meant  in  some 
way  ravin  and  ruin  here  as  well  as  in  Russia,  it 

252 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

was  no  wonder  that  there  began  a  furious  as- 
sault upon  him — with  paper  bullets. 

But  to  see  the  Bolshevic  as  he  really  was,  to 
visit  him  in  his  own  habitat,  was  to  reduce  these 
horrifying  specters  to  the  pleasant  realm  of 
whimsy.  Instead  of  being  an  abnormal  product, 
the  Bolshevic  was  in  Russia  the  most  natural 
fruitage ;  no  plant  ever  grew  more  naturally  from 
any  seed  than  he  was  processed  from  the  old  re- 
gime in  Russia.  Natural !  Nay,  he  was  inevitable. 
By  no  possibility  could  there  be  anywhere  on  this 
earth  the  conditions  that  existed  in  the  old  Rus- 
sian system  without  soon  or  late  producing  Bol- 
shevics.  If  the  Russian  Revolution  had  not  dis- 
closed them  the  lack  would  be  a  sign  of  ill-health ; 
all  persons  that  have  any  skill  in  national  diagno- 
sis would  say  there  was  something  wrong. 

Also,  there  was  nothing  in  the  fundamental  ob- 
jects of  the  Russian  Bolshevics  that  was  in  itself 
of  evil  impulse,  although  the  newspapers  easily 
induced  almost  all  the  American  public  to  believe 
that  there  was.  Every  revolution  that  amounts  to 
anything  sets  free  a  vast  swarm  of  theories  and 
theorists.  If  it  fails  to  have  that  result  it  fails  to 
be  a  revolution,  because  it  fails  then  to  have  the 
basis  of  profound  and  genuine  feeling  that  alone 

253 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

can  make  a  revolution  valuable  or  successful;  and 
these  theories  must  have  their  chance  to  be  worked 
out  or  exhaust  their  impetus. 

Readers  of  American  history  should  have  need- 
ed no  instruction  on  this  point ;  they  should  have 
remembered  that  we  had  eleven  years  of  conflict- 
ing ideas  before  we  settled  down  upon  a  Constitu- 
tion— and  one  far  from  perfect  at  that.  Lessons 
drawn  from  the  French  Revolution  were  equally 
pertinent. 

But  it  quickly  appeared  that  at  the  first  hinted 
analogy  with  the  French  Revolution  a  part  of  the 
public  leaped  to  the  handy  conclusion  that  the 
Bolshevic  was  a  sans  culotte  and  was  about  to 
begin  a  Reign  of  Terror.  This  was  all  wrong :  the 
Bolshevic  was  no  sans  culotte  and  nothing  could 
have  been  farther  from  his  cherished  aims  than  a 
Reign  of  Terror.  He  was,  in  fact,  the  most  inter- 
esting and  important  outgrowth  of  awakened  Rus- 
sia, he  was  a  sign  of  the  Russian  mentality, 
exotic  but  genuine,  he  was  for  the  time  being  the 
true  word  of  Russian  thought,  he  held  for  some 
months  the  fate  of  the  world  in  his  grasp,  and 
it  was  deplorable  that  while  there  was  ceaseless 
but  all  wasted  assault  upon  him — as  if  he  could  be 
overturned  in  Russia  by  attacking  him  in  Jones- 

254 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

ville,  Pennsylvania, — there  was  almost  no  effort 
to  understand  him. 

Yet  this  would  have  been  no  hard  task.  First 
of  all,  it  was  necessary  to  remember  that  he  was 
a  dreamer — a  dreamer  of  pleasant,  kindly,  agree- 
able dreams  that  in  another  age  of  the  earth's 
story  may  not  be  dreams  at  all  but  the  corner  stone 
of  society.  To  the  sincere  but  unreasoned  convic- 
tion of  the  Bolshevic,  the  whole  world  was  wrong 
but  could  easily  be  made  right.  All  it  needed  was 
a  little  application  of  the  Grand  Bejuvenating 
Elixir,  and  he  knew  the  formula  for  the  mixture 
and  was  ready  to  apply  it.  Lay  some  of  this  on 
the  world's  hurt,  was  his  notion,  and  see  how 
quickly  everything  that  is  wrong  will  become 
right. 

There  was,  of  course,  nothing  new  about  this 
kind  of  amiable  obsessionist.  At  least  once  in 
every  generation  the  woods  have  been  full  of  him. 
There  was  nothing  new  in  his  absolute  and  al- 
most matchless  sincerity.  If  the  dreamer  were 
not  sincere  he  could  never  win  anybody  to  his 
dreams.  But  the  fanatic  usually  has  the  world 
before  him  to  be  converted.  What  was  peculiar 
about  the  Bolshevic  was  that  he  believed  (for  a 
time)  the  world,  or  the  greater  part  of  it,  already 

255 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

converted  to  his  dreams  and  needing  only  a  sig- 
nal to  arise  and  make  them  a  reality  for  all  man- 
kind. And  for  the  post  of  herald  of  this  gracious 
transformation,  dawn-bringer  to  the  peoples  dwell- 
ing in  darkness,  he  himself,  the  Bolshevic  of  Rus- 
sia, was  ordained.  At  twelve  o'clock  he  would 
beat  upon  his  bell  in  Petrograd.  At  one  o'clock 
the  proletariat  in  all  countries  would  stand  forth 
and  declare  the  new  order,  and  by  sundown  in  all 
the  world  the  old  social  structure  would  have  been 
pulled  down  and  a  new  one  erected.  Whereupon, 
sound  the  loud  timbrel!  The  race  is  freed,  wars 
will  be  no  more,  racial  and  national  lines  are  wiped 
out,  no  more  dissension,  no  more  strife,  the  lion 
and  the  lamb  will  do  their  long-advertised  and 
justly-famous  performance  before  applauding  mil- 
lions, and  the  world  will  live  happy  ever  after- 
ward, a  band  of  brothers. 

And  what  was  to  overthrow  the  existing  social 
system?  The  torch  and  ax?  Not  at  all.  No  vio- 
lence. The  proletariat  of  the  world  was  to  march 
once  around  the  walls  of  Jericho  blowing  a  tin 
horn,  when  down  would  go  the  walls,  joy  follow, 
and  oppression  vanish. 

He  meant  it.  He  was  in  most  sober  earnest 
about  it.    The  thing  was  so  daylight-clear  to  him 

256 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

that  he  would  never  admit  (because  he  could  not 
conceive)  that  everybody  else  did  not  see  it — ex- 
cept, of  course,  the  small  and  unimportant  capi- 
talist class,  and  they  blinded  themselves  to  it 
because  they  were  about  to  lose  their  privileges. 
All  the  rest  of  the  world  looked  upon  the  matter 
exactly  as  the  Bolshevic  looked  upon  it;  because, 
of  course,  there  was  no  other  possible  way  to  look 
at  it.  All  the  world  was  really  Bolshevic,  but  be- 
cause of  the  tyranny  and  accursed  oppression  of 
the  capitalist,  dare  not  say  so.  Yet  it  would  arise 
and  cast  off  its  yoke  when  the  Bolshevic  should 
give  the  word. 

It  was  a  sad  disillusion  that  awaited  these 
moon-struck  dreamers.  The  world  was  in  a  state 
of  war.  How  terrible  is  war!  Let  us  end  the  war 
and  then  usher  in  everywhere  the  glad  prole- 
tarian rule.  So  they  invited  all  the  warring  na- 
tions to  come  to  a  peace  conference  and,  when  the 
nations  failed  to  respond,  they  entered  upon  the 
fatal  negotiations  at  Brest-Litovsk  and  awoke  to 
find  the  claws  of  the  German  vulture  in  the  heart 
of  their  new  born  Republic. 

From  all  this  the  Bolshevic  might  be  inferred  to 
be  an  ignorant  man.  That  again  would  be  error. 
He  was  often  very  well-informed — about  every- 

257 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

thing  except  the  world's  attitude  toward  the 
hobby-horse  that  so  gallantly  and  persistently  he 
rode.  When  I  was  in  Petrograd  I  passed  many 
pleasant  hours  with  typical  Bolshevics.  Invari- 
ably I  found  them  abounding  in  courtesy  and  well- 
equipped  with  culture  and  information,  but  once 
mounted  upon  the  facile  hobby-horse,  flashing  far 
away  like  the  elfin  rider  that,  to  tell  the  truth, 
they  considerably  resembled. 

For  what  was  the  new  structure  of  society  that 
at  one  o'clock  the  enlightened  proletariat  was  to 
erect  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old,  fallen  to  pieces  at 
noon?  So  nearly  as  I  could  gather,  it  was  based 
and  projected  much  as  follows : 

1.  In  common  with  Menshevics,  Minimalists, 
Trudevics,  and  practically  everybody  else  in  Rus- 
sia, the  Bolshevics  accepted  the  general  outlines 
of  the  Socialist  philosophy.  They  believed  that  all 
wealth  is  created  by  labor  and  that  labor  is  en- 
titled to  the  wealth  it  creates.  They  believed,  that 
is  to  say,  in  industrial  democracy.  They  believed 
that  to  bring  about  industrial  democracy,  all  in- 
dustries should  be  owned  by  and  operated  for  the 
benefit  of  the  community. 

2.  But  they  went  much  farther  than  this  by 
believing  that  these  changes  could  be  and  should 

258 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

be  wrought  at  once  and  that  instantly  there  should 
be  instituted  likewise  these  essential  principles : 

A.  All  men  and  women  should  work. 

B.  All  men  and  women  that  work  should  be  or- 
ganized into  unions. 

C.  Each  union  should  have  its  central  govern- 
ing council. 

D.  These  central  councils  should  constitute  all 
the  government  there  is  in  this  world.  No  con- 
gresses, no  presidents,  no  parliaments,  no  prime 
ministers,  no  cabinets,  no  legislatures,  no  gov- 
ernors, nothing  but  the  councils  of  the  unions. 

"With  the  utmost  sincerity  they  could  see  noth- 
ing about  these  changes  more  difficult  than  the  is- 
suing of  a  proclamation  or  two. 

But  while  part  of  the  world  bellowed  laughter, 
part  sneered  and  part  raved  at  this  program, 
the  fact  remained  that  it  was  a  thing  typically 
Russian  and  the  strange,  new  force  that  had 
been  let  loose  upon  mankind  had  a  kind  of  al- 
truistic basis,  after  all,  not  half  so  amusing  as  it 
was  fine  and  high.  The  Bolshevic  himself  was  not 
a  Bolshevic  because  he  wanted  advantages  on  his 
own  account.  Even  when  the  Bolshevic  coup  of 
November,  1917,  came  and  so  many  things  were 
done  that  denied  fundamental  democracy,  no  con- 

259 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

siderable  number  of  Bolshevics  had  any  selfish  im- 
pulse. It  was  this  grand  and  goldenly  hazy  dream 
that  fired  them — the  workers  of  all  the  world 
about  to  sweep  into  power  and  plenty,  peace  and 
joy,  and  for  that  cause  the  Bolshevics  would  be 
perfectly  willing  to  die. 

I  think  I  may  farther  remark  that  this  peculiar 
flowering  could  never  be  without  a  soil  exactly 
suited  for  it,  that  Bolshevics  could  never  have  been 
a  great  power  in  Kussia  if  the  Russian  nature  had 
not  been  peculiarly  adapted  to  a  dreamy  altruism, 
gorgeous  as  the  gold  of  sunset  and  as  difficult  to 
lay  hold  of.  This  is  a  world  full  of  contradictions 
and  anomalies,  but  the  philosopher  will  not  find 
any  of  them  better  food  for  meditation  than  the 
fact  that  the  nation  that  has  produced  the  most 
appalling  cruelties  has  also  produced  men  of  the 
most  extraordinary  kindness,  unselfishness,  and 
broad,  altruistic  inspiration. 

No  doubt  something  is  to  be  allowed  in  all  this 
for  the  principle  of  compensations.  The  moment 
the  horrible  weight  of  the  old  system  was  lifted 
from  the  Russian,  his  heart  and  mind  sprang  up 
mountain  high.  This  was  but  normal  and  whole- 
some. The  old  regime  had  been  to  him  the  sym- 
bol of  irresistible  might,  enduring  pomp,  chilling 

260 


THE  BOLSHEVTC 

fear,  savage  and  senseless  cruelty.  From  the 
time  he  entered  upon  consciousness  to  the  time  he 
left  the  world,  he  drew  no  breath  untainted  with 
the  poisonous  effluvia  of  the  thing,  he  saw  no  pros- 
pect free  from  its  cold  shadow.  Of  a  sudden  the 
weight  that  he  had  thought  eternal  was  removed ; 
what  he  had  taken  for  a  symbol  of  everlasting 
power  dissolved  before  his  eyes.  It  seemed  to  him 
like  the  end  of  the  old  world  and  the  beginning  of 
the  new.  Whatever  native  unselfishness  he  had 
in  his  heart  bloomed  out  into  the  belief  that  a 
change  so  tremendous  ought  to  embrace  all  man- 
kind, and  the  vision  of  an  entirely  new  order  for 
all  the  sons  of  men  caught  him  full-hearted- 
ly.  Nothing  could  have  better  fitted  into  his  mood. 
Nevertheless,  the  Bolshevic  movement,  as  an  or- 
ganized force,  was  always  limited  to  the  cities, 
chiefly  Petrograd  and  Moscow.  Bolshevic  rank 
and  file  were  factory  and  transport  workers,  and 
the  great,  significant  and  in  the  end  determining 
fact  remained  that  the  peasant  was  not  converted 
to  the  dream.  For  a  time  he  might  acquiesce  in 
it — yes ;  but  he  would  not  accept  the  philosophy  of 
it.  He  was  a  revolutionist,  he  was  a  Socialist,  he 
believed  in  eventual  industrial  democracy ;  but  for 
the  most  part  the  dream  of  an  instantaneous  pro- 

261 


UNCHAINED  BUSSIA 

letarian  world  left  him  untouched.  Not  even  from 
the  dazzling  lure  of  the  promised  division  of  lands 
would  he  take  fire,  and  it  was  evident  that  if  Rus- 
sia survived  at  all  it  would  survive  in  other  hands 
than  the  Bolshevics'  and  without  the  golden 
vision. 

But  here  once  more,  as  so  often  before,  the 
situation  was  exactly  what  the  German  propa- 
ganda could  have  wished.  It  gave  to  all  the  gran- 
diose concepts  of  the  Bolshevics  every  possible 
assistance  and  much  brilliant  coloring.  It  led  the 
unfortunate  Trotskys  by  the  hand  through  the 
economic  Dreamland  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff  and 
pushed  them  into  the  abyss.  For  it  knew  the  Rus- 
sian mind  as  a  man  knows  the  inside  of  his  own 
house. 

It  was  much  to  know,  for  I  may  say  it  is  a  thing 
that  has  been  the  despair  of  most  other  foreign- 
ers. The  contradiction  I  spoke  of  between  a  peo- 
ple of  the  kindliest  impulses  and  their  govern- 
ment given  over  to  the  most  appalling  cruelties 
is  but  one  of  a  long  list  of  utterly  inconsistent 
qualities.  Take  a  race  that  is  at  the  same  time 
prone  to  cheerfulness  and  prone  to  profound  mel- 
ancholy ;  full  of  optimistic  hope  and  ready  to  de- 
spair;  full  in  about  equal  proportions  of  confidence 

0£9 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

and  fatalism;  merry  and  gloomy;  capable  of  tole- 
rating the  unspeakable  barbarities  of  the  imperial 
system  and  full  at  the  same  time  of  a  feminine 
tenderness  and  sympathy  with  the  least  suffering; 
gentle  and  rough;  hard  fighters  when  they  fight 
at  all,  but  hating  a  fight  and  always  hoping  to 
avoid  it;  generous  and  parsimonious;  elemental, 
and  yet,  about  some  things,  the  most  sophisticated 
people  on  earth ;  and  you  can  begin  to  respect  the 
achievement  of  the  Germans  when  they  found  out 
the  key  to  such  a  psychology  and  were  able  to  turn 
it  to  their  own  uses. 

By  the  common  consent  of  all  superficial  visitors, 
the  Russian  is  essentially  lazy;  being  Oriental, 
he  must  be  lazy;  tradition  would  fail  and  our  ac- 
cepted and  beloved  theories  yield  no  more  of  com- 
fort to  our  souls  if  we  could  not  call  him  lazy. 
And  yet  he  can  give  on  occasion  the  most  astound- 
ing examples  of  industry,  patient  and  plodding, 
also  swift  and  long-continued.  Similarly  eminent 
are  the  authorities  that  have  convinced  us  of  the 
peasants'  dullness.  And  yet  they  are  continually 
showing  great  alertness  of  mind  and  great  capac- 
ity for  intelligent  action.  There  is  little  dissent 
from  the  common  verdict  that  the  Russians  as  a 
whole  are  deficient  in  initiative.    Yet  the  idea  has 

263 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

been  proved  over  and  over  to  be  grossly  absurd, 
for  the  Russian  soldier  has  shown  on  the  field  of 
battle  an  aptitude  for  initiative  that  confounds 
his  critics. 

In  the  historic  retreat  of  the  Russian  forces 
from  the  Carpathians  in  the  summer  of  1915,  for 
instance.  Many  Russian  officers  had  been  killed, 
many  others  had  been  found  to  be  incompetent. 
Long  sections  of  a  line,  stretched  out  over  many 
leagues  upon  leagues,  were  without  any  general 
command.  The  army  was  executing  one  of  the 
most  difficult  and  perilous  of  maneuvers;  it  was 
fighting  rear-guard  actions  as  it  retired  before  a 
superior  foe  that  pressed  it  fiercely.  Yet  the  Rus- 
sians held  the  line  intact  and  got  home  with  losses 
so  light  that  the  world  wondered.  So  marvelous, 
in  fact,  was  the  feat,  the  busy  brains  of  the  uneasy 
wights  that  are  always  looking  for  a  Moses  had 
to  invent  a  hero  for  the  occasion.  They  picked 
out  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  as  a  fine  figure  for 
an  idol  and  proceeded  to  spread  the  notion  that 
he  was  the  master-mind  of  the  strategy. 

The  world  accepted  this  engaging  fiction  and 
probably  will  ever  cling  to  it.  Yet  in  point  of  fact 
the  celebrated  Grand  Duke  had  as  much  to  do 
with  the  retreat  as  one  of  the  horses  that  drew  a 

264 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

gun.  He  went  along,  but  he  directed  nothing. 
Correspondents  that  saw  the  whole  performance 
told  me  that  the  Grand  Duke's  specialty  was 
striking  soldiers  in  the  face  and  swearing  at 
them.  At  these  accomplishments  he  was  as  good 
as  the  best;  otherwise  he  was  of  but  barren 
achievement.  The  real  heroes  of  the  retreat  were 
General  Alexieff,  who  was  undoubtedly  a  great 
military  genius,  and  the  Eussian  private,  who 
understood  what  was  required  for  safety  and  suc- 
cess and  went  ahead  and  provided  it.  I  am  even 
told  that  Eussian  soldiers  without  officers  would 
pick  the  best  places  for  the  trench  line,  and  dig 
themselves  in,  as  well  as  they  could  have  done 
under  any  skilled  leadership. 

There  is,  of  course,  much  in  the  Eussian  that 
seems  to  slower-pulsed  people  like  extravagance 
and  impulsiveness.  Albert  Thomas,  at  that  time 
French  Minister  of  Munitions,  one  of  the  great 
minds  of  his  country  and  one  of  the  ablest  of  liv- 
ing orators,  visited  Eussia  in  the  early  summer 
of  1917,  and  created  a  profound  impression.  At 
the  close  of  his  speech  it  was  usual  for  the  people 
to  arise  and  shout  their  approval,  sometimes  lift- 
ing him  in  their  arms  and  carrying  him  in  tri- 
umph through  the  streets.    He  discovered  after  a 

265 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

time  that  the  same  people  that  paid  him  these 
honors  would  a  short  time  later  do  much  the  same 
things  for  another  orator  expressing  exactly  op- 
posite sentiments.  This  did  not  mean  fickleness 
nor  feebleness  of  mind,  although  it  was  so  con- 
strued. It  only  meant  that  the  people  were  ap- 
plauding good  oratory,  of  which  classical  art,  by 
the  way,  they  are  excellent  and  discriminating 
judges,  being  themselves  a  nation  of  orators. 

This  is  another  amazement,  and  a  contradiction 
that  may  well  cause  us  to  ponder,  since  of  course 
before  the  Revolution  there  was  no  free  speech 
in  Russia,  and  consequently  how  could  such  an 
art  be  practised?  In  the  processes  of  nature  you 
would  as  soon  expect  pineapples  to  grow  by  the 
Lena  River  as  a  race  of  orators  in  silenced  and 
fear-bound  Russia.  Yet  observe  the  product. 
Such  men  as  Tschaidse  and  Tseratelli  in  the  full 
swing  of  oratorical  triumph,  the  words  rolling 
and  thundering  forth  like  a  lava  stream,  burning 
and  flashing,  never  a  slip,  never  an  instant's  hesi- 
tation, the  orator  rising  to  new  heights  of  passion 
and  taking  with  him  every  hearer's  rapt  atten- 
tion, vindicate  the  best  traditions  of  a  very  noble 
art.  Yet  I  do  not  know  that  these  men  were  much 
more  remarkable  than  a  thousand  others.    Every- 

266 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

body  is  expected  to  talk  well,  and  nothing  is  more 
illuminating  about  Russian  psychology  than  the 
fact  that  to  the  Russian  mind  the  oratory  of  most 
other  countries  is  but  cold  and  clammy.  They 
look  for  rapidity,  action,  vehemence,  overwhelm- 
ing passion,  winding  up  with  "Hurrah!"  for 
something,  or  "Long  live!"  something  else. 

When  we  were  on  our  way  back  from  Petro- 
grad  some  misbegotten  knaves,  agents  of  Ger- 
many with  whom  Russia  was  so  oversupplied, 
were  alert  enough  to  burn  a  bridge  in  front  of 
our  train  in  the  hope  that  we  should  fall  into  the 
river  and  be  killed.  This  failed,  but  we  were  held 
up  thirty-six  hours  in  a  Russian  town  while  the 
bridge  was  undergoing  repair.  In  that  time  other 
low-lived  minions  of  despotism  tried  four  times 
to  set  our  train  on  fire.  They  did  not  succeed  in 
this,  either,  I  am  pleased  to  remark,  but  finally, 
to  their  own  great  satisfaction,  no  doubt,  they 
were  able  to  fire  a  warehouse  by  the  side  of  our 
train  with  the  manifest  and  wicked  thought  that 
we  should  be  burned  up  with  it.  They  had  a  de- 
vice, the  invention  of  the  devil,  their  father,  that 
consisted  of  a  small  sharp  dagger  and  some  con- 
coction of  phosphorus  that  would  take  fire  from 
the  sun's  rays.    They  would  stick  this  upon  the 

267 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

side  of  a  building  and  walk  quietly  off  and  when 
the  building  was  afire  they  would  be  miles  away. 

They  used  this  on  the  warehouse  by  the  side  of 
our  train  and  the  first  thing  we  knew  the  struc- 
ture was  flaming. 

It  was  an  excellent  chance  to  see  the  Russian 
characteristics  in  unpremeditated  display.  The 
whole  population  ran  to  the  place,  yelling  at  top 
pitch,  a  practice  that  ceased  not  while  the  fire 
burned,  the  belief  being  apparently  that  flames 
could  be  assuaged  by  vocalization.  Yet  they  were 
not  much  excited;  Russians  are  seldom  hysteri- 
cal; and  they  worked  with  almost  superhuman 
energy  to  save  property.  At  some  risk  to  them- 
selves they  ran  our  train  into  a  place  of  safety. 
Freight-cars  standing  closer  to  the  warehouse 
immediately  took  fire.  The  report  went  around, 
and  might  easily  have  been  true,  that  these  cars 
and  others  were  loaded  with  ammunition,  in  which 
case  that  would  have  been  shortly  a  hot  and  un- 
healthy neighborhood.  But  the  Russians  were 
undismayed.  They  went  into  the  thick  of  the 
flames,  exposed  themselves  recklessly  to  danger, 
of  which  they  seemed  to  be  insensible,  came  near 
to  being  burned,  and  drew  all  the  remaining  cars 
away  from  those  that  were  on  fire — never  ceasing 

268 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

to  yell,  while  they  worked  like  fiends.  Their 
labors  saved  many  valuable  commodities,  but  fif- 
teen cars  were  destroyed. 

This  scene  was  typically  Russian.  So  was  the 
fact  that  the  town's  fire  apparatus,  which  was 
early  on  the  scene,  might  have  been  effective  in 
extinguishing  a  fire  in  a  chicken  coop  but  not  in 
anything  larger.  So  was  the  other  fact,  most  in- 
structive, that  nobody  stopped  to  give  much  heed 
to  the  fire  apparatus,  but  all  started  with  an  in- 
stantaneous response  to  be  useful  and  meet  the 
emergency. 

There  was  something  else  that  an  outsider 
might  have  noted  with  still  more  of  philosophical 
wonder.  According  to  the  strange  but  wide- 
spread error  previously  noted,  the  Russians  are 
deficient  in  the  capacity  for  united  effort.  This  is 
the  result  of  shallow  reasoning,  but  when  all  the 
facts  are  considered,  not  to  be  wondered  at.  Per- 
sons of  this  faith  start  with  the  truism  that  there 
are  nineteen  different  nationalities  and  languages 
in  Russia  and  that  consequently  there  can  be  no 
such  thing  as  cohesion  in  national  affairs ;  and  as 
the  people  have  never  had  any  responsibility  or 
experience  in  government  there  can  never  be  any 
cohesion  in  local  affairs  either. 

269 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

Count  Witte  was  largely  responsible  for  this 
part  of  the  fixed  faith  of  America  about  Rus- 
sian affairs.  When  he  was  here  at  the  time 
of  the  Portsmouth  Treaty,  he  was  somewhat  em- 
barrassed by  the  questions  put  to  him  by  re- 
porters and  other  Americans  concerning  Russian 
autocracy  and  the  ill-fated  revolution  of  1905, 
which  had  but  lately  (and  most  unluckily)  failed. 
He  defended  Russia's  archaic  government  by  de- 
claring that  nothing  but  an  iron  despotism  and 
a  rifle  at  every  corner  would  keep  such  discordant 
elements  from  cutting  one  another's  throats,  and 
therefore  autocracy  was  necessary  for  Russia  and 
much  to  be  admired. 

Americans  accepted  this  doctrine,  as  they 
usually,  in  their  good  nature,  will  accept  any  skil- 
fully compounded  sophism  from  any  foreign  visi- 
tor, and  we  all  arrived  at  the  comfortable  con- 
clusion that  the  Russians  never  could  work  to- 
gether and  the  Iron  Fist  was  a  pretty  good  in- 
stitution— for  them.  Of  course  we  did  not  wish 
it  for  ourselves.  Count  Witte  probably  knew 
better.  Instead  of  the  Russians  having  no  ca- 
pacity for  united  effort  they  have,  as  I  pointed 
out  in  the  chapter  about  cooperation,  an  unusual 
capacity  of  that  kind.    At  this  fire  I  am  telling 

270 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

you  of  there  must  have  been  a  thousand  of  them, 
yelling  and  working  with  ferocious  energy,  and 
instinctively  working  together.  There  was  some- 
thing strange  about  it.  I  naturally  expected  to 
see  a  group  at  one  end  of  a  car  trying  to  pull  it  in 
one  direction  and  another  group  at  the  other  end 
trying  to  pull  it  in  the  other  direction,  with  the 
like  exhibitions  of  light-headed  aberration.  But 
in  spite  of  the  yelling  there  was  little  confusion, 
but  only  a  kind  of  instinctive  falling  into  line  one 
with  another  and  uniting  to  do  the  obvious  and 
necessary  thing.  An  American  that  had  lived 
many  years  in  Eussia  observed  that  this  was 
usually  manifested  in  village  life  whenever  any 
crisis  great  or  small  came  upon  the  community. 

I  am  sure  that  Count  Witte  must  have  known 
better  also  when  it  comes  to  national  affairs,  be- 
cause no  one  that  has  seen  the  old  Duma,  the 
National  Council  or  any  other  deliberative  body 
of  representative  Eussians,  will  take  seriously  the 
notion  that  the  diverse  races  of  Eussia  need  any 
Iron  Fist  to  keep  them  in  order.  The  Council 
consisted  of  representatives  of  all  these  races  and 
never  had  a  jar  on  any  racial  lines.  The  typical 
Eussian  does  not  care  much  for  racial  differences. 
How  could  he  when  he  has  as  little  patriotism  as 

271 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

any  man  alive  ?  Count  Witte  must  have  chuckled 
to  himself  when  he  saw  how  some  of  the  wisest 
men  of  the  American  press  took  seriously  his  little 
fable. 

Yet  at  once  we  are  projected  against  the  other 
side  of  this  matter,  the  invariable  Eussian  con- 
tradiction. The  typical  Eussian  is  not  much  im- 
pressed with  racial  differences,  and  yet  there  was 
Kishinev.  He  allowed  his  Government  in  the  im- 
perial days  to  stain  itself  black  for  all  time  with 
the  most  monstrous  racial  persecutions  that  have 
ever  been  known  outside  of  Turkey.  Of  course 
it  is  but  justice  to  acknowledge  that  he  had  at 
that  time  very  little  to  do  with  his  Government 
and  no  adequate  means  of  protest  against  any- 
thing it  did.  The  world  will  be  slow  to  think  he 
could  not  have  shown  in  some  way  that  he  did  not 
approve  of  wholesale  murder.  Yet  here  also  the 
world  will  be  wrong  again.  As  soon  as  Eussia 
was  free,  as  soon  as  the  hateful  and  insane  old 
tyranny  was  beaten  forth  and  democracy  took  its 
place,  the  Jew  was  endowed  with  all  his  natural 
rights  as  a  citizen  exactly  like  any  other  citizen. 
All  restrictions  were  removed  as  to  residence, 
utterance,  or  travel,  and  at  least  twenty-five  Jews 
sat  as  elected  delegates  in  the  National  Council. 

272 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

The  Russian  had  made  amends  in  his  own  pecu- 
liar way,  which  is  an  Oriental  way  and  quite  dif- 
ferent from  our  way,  but  not  therefore  neces- 
sarily worse.  Moreover,  we  shall  have  to  accept 
him  with  his  way,  peculiar  and  intricate  as  that 
is,  because  unless  Germany  succeeds  in  suppress- 
ing him  he  has  come  among  us  to  stay  and  be  ac- 
counted with,  we  may  be  sure  of  that. 

He  has  so  many  fine  and  good  traits,  this  new 
democrat  of  the  North,  that  it  is  impossible  not 
to  love  him  in  spite  of  what  to  cooler  tempera- 
ments seem  startling  inconsistencies.  Show  a  typi- 
cal Russian  a  chance  to  save  life  or  avert  disaster 
and  he  will  leap  into  danger  with  the  most  mag- 
nificent disregard  of  his  own  safety.  The  people 
of  Sicily  are  not  likely  soon  to  forget  that  fact. 
In  the  great  earthquake  of  1908  a  Russian  cruiser 
happened  to  be  in  harbor.  The  sailors  swarmed 
ashore,  went  into  toppling  buildings,  crawled  over 
insecure  walls,  dug  like  mad  in  the  ruins,  worked 
day  and  night  without  sleep,  and  rescued  hun- 
dreds of  persons  that  must  otherwise  have  per- 
ished. They  not  only  appeared  to  the  wonder- 
stricken  Sicilians  like  great  blond  giants  provi- 
dentially sent  to  do  wonders  of  physical  strength 
and  courage,  but  they  worked  intelligently  and 

273 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

with  invention,  discovering  new  and  startling 
ways  of  reaching  places  supposed  to  be  in- 
accessible. 

It  was  perfectly  characteristic  of  them  that 
they  treated  the  unfortunate  inhabitants  with  af- 
fectionate tenderness  like  that  of  mothers,  min- 
istering to  the  wounded,  carrying  little  children 
or  old  folk  to  places  of  safety;  and  just  as  char- 
acteristic that,  without  the  least  remorse  or  com- 
punction, they  shot  down  anybody  that  came 
within  the  prohibited  area.  So  it  was  in  the  Revo- 
lution. The  people  that  fought  the  police  with 
such  desperate  and  ferocious  courage,  beating 
them  to  death  so  long  as  they  offered  resistance, 
throwing  them  into  the  canal,  shooting  them  down 
without  mercy,  were  the  same  people  that  would 
not  injure  the  remnant  police  that  surrendered, 
hated  though  these  were. 

Because  he  inherits  a  strong  sense  of  justice 
and  generosity,  the  Russian  may  be  called  a  good 
sport.  He  fights  powerfully,  as  a  rule  he  fights 
intelligently,  but  he  would  scorn  to  maltreat  a 
prisoner  in  his  hands.  Not  even  the  terrible  and 
authentic  narratives  of  the  sufferings  of  Russian 
prisoners  in  German  camps  provoked  the  least  re- 
taliation upon  the  1,500,000  German  and  Austrian 

274 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

prisoners  that  were  held  in  Eussia.  As  a  rule  the 
German  prisoner  in  Russia  fared  exceedingly 
well.  I  ought  to  know;  I  saw  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  them  and  talked  with  not  a  few.  In 
some  regions  of  Siberia  they  might  be  said  to 
swarm  over  the  landscape.  I  never  saw  one  of 
them  that  did  not  seem  to  be  well-nourished.  His 
uniform  might  have  grown  ragged  and  his  cap 
be  faded  or  greasy,  but  he  was  physically  fit  and 
frequently  well  content. 

Private  soldiers  that  were  prisoners  in  Russia 
were  allowed  to  go  forth  to  work.  Many  were 
employed  upon  the  railroads,  great  numbers  upon 
the  farms,  some  in  the  factories  and  some  seemed 
to  roam  the  roads  at  their  own  sweet  will.  It 
was  different  with  officers;  they  were  confined 
within  the  stockades.  I  do  not  know  how  courtesy 
to  a  prisoner  could  further  go  than  to  make  him 
a  citizen,  endow  him  with  a  ballot  and  elect  him 
to  sit  as  a  legislator  in  the  local  council.  German 
and  Austrian  prisoners  in  many  parts  of  Russia 
immediately  after  the  Revolution  went  through 
that  experience,  which  was  both  Quixotic  and  emi- 
nently Russian,  and  many  of  them  were  still  hold- 
ing seats  in  the  local  governing  bodies  when  I 
was  there. 

275 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

I  think  it  was  an  ominous  but  generally  dis- 
regarded symptom  that  the  Russians  in  1917 
showed  plainly  they  had  no  feeling  against  the 
Germans  and,  what  was  still  more  important,  they 
cared  little  or  nothing  about  the  racial  ties  sup- 
posed to  bind  them  to  the  Serbians.  This  was  a 
fact  that  many  visitors  could  not  understand,  but 
fact  it  was  nevertheless.  The  explanation  was 
that  the  Revolution  had  raised  the  wild  hope  of 
an  end  to  all  nationalism  and  they  thought  to 
begin  the  new  order  at  home.  I  will  not  be  sure 
that  to  remember  this  particular  tie  would  have 
been  inconvenient,  but  as  neither  man  nor  nation 
does  anything  for  only  one  reason  such  a  view 
might  have  had  weight.  But  as  to  the  Germans, 
not  Belgium,  nor  the  violated  faith,  nor  the  slaves 
of  Lille  could  win  in  my  time  any  response  from 
an  average  Russian  audience.  There  was  (a  fact 
too  commonly  overlooked)  a  strong  sentimental 
attraction  toward  Germany  growing  out  of  the 
German  origin  of  the  sacred  doctrines  of  Social- 
ism, and  then  there  was  the  universal  conviction 
that  the  German  people  were  about  to  revolt, 
throw  off  the  autocracy  and  proclaim  the  German 
Republic.  I  was  never  done  wondering  at  the 
extent  to  which  this  delusion  went.    One  day  at 

276 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

luncheon  with  three  of  the  most  intelligent  mem- 
bers of  the  Luvoff  cabinet,  well-informed  men, 
Messrs.  Tseratelli,  Tchernoff  and  Skobeloff,  I 
found  these  so  thoroughly  and  honestly  convinced 
the  German  Revolution  was  at  hand  that  most  of 
the  conversation  dwelt  fondly  upon  the  details 
of  it.  "  Any  moment  we  may  get  the  news,"  said 
M.  Skobeloff.  "It  may  be  coming  over  the  wires 
this  instant." 

It  seemed  to  me  that  there  was  much  more  feel- 
ing against  the  British  than  against  the  Germans, 
partly  due  to  the  efforts  of  the  German  agents, 
partly  to  resentment  against  what  were  believed 
to  be  the  British  tactics  in  Russia  and  partly  to 
the  general  belief  that  Great  Britain's  one  aim  in 
entering  the  war  was  to  secure  the  German  col- 
onies. There  was  no  good  will  toward  the  Jap- 
anese but  less  hostility  than  I  had  looked  for. 
Yet  there  was  a  general  uneasiness  about  the 
future  relations  between  the  two  countries.  But 
the  Russian  as  a  rule  does  not  cling  with  per- 
sistence or  bitterness  to  any  nationalistic  preju- 
dices. He  has  too  much  of  the  stoic  philosophy 
in  his  strangely  complex  nature;  also  too  much 
of  the  fatalist.  Thus,  fighting  hard,  he  will  hold 
to  a  hopeless  corner  longer  than  almost  any  other 

277 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

tribe  on  earth  would  stick  there,  and  then  give  up 
fighting  in  an  instant,  sit  down  and  take  with  the 
speechless  fortitude  of  a  North  American  Indian 
whatever  fate  may  have  in  store — death,  torture, 
or  starvation  in  a  prison  camp.  I  was  told  that 
Eussian  prisoners  in  German  hands  never  gave 
their  guards  any  trouble,  never  complained,  never 
asked  for  anything  different,  but  merely  folded 
their  arms  and  dropped  out  when  they  could  stand 
no  more.  Until  that  time,  among  the  sick  in  the 
prison,  the  wounded,  the  suffering,  the  kindest  of 
all  nurses  and  warmest  of  friends  were  these 
same  Russians. 

Yet  turn  the  next  way  and  you  will  find  him 
looking  with  cold  and  indifferent  eyes  upon  an- 
other scene  of  suffering.  The  brutality  in  the 
Russian  army  and  navy,  which  I  have  described 
in  a  former  chapter,  never  called  forth  any  pro- 
test from  anybody  of  purely  Russian  origin,  al- 
though it  had  that  effect  upon  some  others.  I 
know  of  a  young  officer  in  the  Russian  navy  whose 
mother  was  an  American  and  whose  American 
blood  once  revolted  against  the  savagery  around 
him,  and  revolted  in  a  way  that  cost  him  dear. 
He  was  making  his  first  cruise  as  an  ensign.  At 
a  Baltic  port  the  vessel  stopped  to  take  on  a  cer- 

278 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

tain  number  of  raw  recruits.  Two  officers  were 
stationed  at  the  head  of  the  ladder.  As  each  new 
man  landed  upon  the  deck  one  officer  dealt  him  a 
stunning  blow  with  the  clenched  fist  aimed  at  his 
ear  and  the  other  kicked  him  off  his  feet. 

The  semi-American  ensign  viewed  this  with 
horror  and  wrath  and  tore  up  to  the  bridge  to 
protest  against  it  to  the  commanding  officer.  He 
only  succeeded  in  having  himself  ordered  to  the 
lazarette  for  ten  days. 

"Monstrous  impudence !"  said  the  command- 
ing officer,  aghast.  "What  do  you  mean  by  com- 
ing up  here  to  teach  me  my  duty  I?" 

Fatalism  is  strong  upon  the  Russian ;  he  has  a 
powerful  instinct  to  view  whatever  is  as  having 
been  ordained  for  him  and  not  to  be  combated 
until  the  same  Fates  relent  or  open  up  a  way  to 
get  rid  of  the  affliction.  This  is  utterly  incon- 
sistent with  the  marvelous  story  of  the  Russian 
revolutionary  fight,  which  for  relentless  tenacity 
through  many  years  has  no  equal  in  human 
history.  Inconsistent — yes;  but  nearly  every- 
thing in  Russia  is  inconsistent  with  something 
else.  Inconsistency  is  one  of  the  Russian's 
strongest  traits  and  helps  to  make  him  lovable 
and  human.    After  a  time  you  get  so  you  do  not 

279 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

mind  his  inconsistencies,  but  develop  a  certain 
pleasurable  sense  in  the  taste  of  them,  their 
piquant  frankness  and  their  variety,  ever  fresh 
and  new.  When  he  makes  an  appointment  with 
someone  for  3  o'clock  at  his  office  and  at  2:30 
wanders  out  and  does  not  return,  his  eccentricities 
may  seem  somewhat  annoying  to  the  visitor  but 
the  Russian  cannot  for  the  life  of  him  see  why 
they  should  be.  There  is  tomorrow,  or  next  week 
or  next  month.  Come  around  again.  If  he  hap- 
pens to  think  of  it  next  time  he  may  be  on  hand. 

Yet  he  is  very  far  from  being  a  thoughtless  or 
irrational  creature  and  still  farther  from  any 
lack  of  consideration  for  his  fellow-man.  He  is 
naturally  reflective,  likes  to  weigh  argument 
against  argument,  and  will  admit  with  candor  a 
change  in  his  views.  On  the  train  with  us  from 
Vladivostok  to  Petrograd  was  a  certain  Ameri- 
can whose  coming  was  known  in  advance  to  the 
revolutionists  of  a  large  Siberian  city.  They 
wanted  to  get  his  views  about  a  matter  of  mo- 
ment to  them,  and  sent  to  meet  him  at  the  station 
the  head  of  the  civil  council  governing  the  city 
and  the  head  of  the  soldiers'  organization.  This 
illuminating  conversation  followed : 

"Do  you  think  we  did  right,"  asked  the  Rus- 
280 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

sians,  "in  supporting  the  provisional  government 
at  Petrograd?" 

"Most  assuredly,"  said  the  American.  "Why 
not!" 

"But  it  contains  capitalists." 

"Well,  so  does  the  world,  but  we  are  to  live  in 
it  just  the  same.  So  does  Eussia,  but  you  don't 
leave  it  on  that  account." 

"That  is  very  true,  but  do  you  think  we  can 
properly  sit  down  at  the  same  council-table  with 
capitalists?" 

"Why  not?  In  the  present  emergency  you  and 
the  capitalist  members  of  the  Government  have 
exactly  the  same  object,  and  that  object  must  be 
attained  before  anything  else." 

"What  do  you  think  it  is?" 

"Why,  plainly  enough,  to  make  democracy  se- 
cure here.  The  great  danger  that  you  face  is 
from  without.  Democracy  is  in  no  particular 
danger  from  within.  Nobody  in  Russia  will  re- 
store the  Czar.  But  if  Germany  gets  the  upper 
hand  in  Russia,  she  absolutely  must  bring  back 
the  old  regime  or  something  like  it,  for  the  simple, 
obvious  reason  that  she  cannot  afford  to  have  a 
democracy  stretched  along  her  northern  frontier. 
It  would  mean  the  overthrow  of  her  own  system 

281 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

of  absolutism.  For  her  sheer  safety  she  must 
have  absolutism  here.  Imagine  Germany  between 
the  Republic  of  France  on  the  south  and  the  Re- 
public of  Russia  on  the  north.  How  long  would 
the  Kaiser  last?  The  very  first  essential  for 
democracy  in  Russia  is  that  you  shall  keep  Ger- 
many out. ' ' 

A  silence  ensued  in  which  it  was  evident  the 
Russians  were  turning  this  to  and  fro  in  their 
minds.  Then  they  announced  that  it  was  good, 
making  the  announcement  in  the  Russian  fashion, 
which  consisted  of  kissing  the  American  suddenly 
upon  both  cheeks  and  inviting  him  to  come  back 
as  soon  as  possible,  have  more  tea  and  talk  more 
in  the  same  line. 

When  the  Russian  makes  an  engagement,  for- 
gets to  keep  it,  and  his  attention  is  called  to  the 
lapse,  his  theory  is  that  the  Fates  have  merely  or- 
dained that  he  shall  walk  out  of  his  office  at  a  cer- 
tain time  and  out  he  walks  accordingly.  There  was 
an  apt  illustration  of  his  fatalism  in  the  Bolshevic 
rebellion  of  November,  1917.  As  I  have  pre- 
viously explained,  the  whole  Government  of  Rus- 
sia at  that  time  rested  in  the  hands  of  the  Na- 
tional Council  and  was  never  vested  in  Kerensky 
or  in  the  ministry.    When  the  Council  adjourned 

282 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

it  left  as  the  governing  power  in  Russia  an  execu- 
tive committee  of  250  persons,  membership  being 
apportioned  among  the  political  parties  in  exact 
ratio  to  their  strength  in  the  Council.  This  gave, 
I  think,  the  Bolshevics  and  Maximalists  38  or  39 
members  in  the  Executive  Committee,  all  the  rest 
of  which  was  anti-Bolshevic.  When  the  Bol- 
shevics made  their  armed  uprising,  seized  the 
machinery  of  government  in  Petrograd,  declared 
Kerensky  deposed  and  Lenine  prime  minister  in 
his  place,  the  anti-Bolshevics  in  the  Executive 
Committee  said: 

' '  Oh,  very  well !  If  you  want  to  do  this  kind  of 
thing,  go  ahead. ' ' 

So  they  withdrew  in  a  body  from  the  committee, 
leaving  the  minority  rump  of  Bolshevics  to  com- 
mand thG  situation  unopposed  and  to  represent 
themselves  to  be  both  the  Executive  Committee 
and  the  National  Council ;  being,  in  truth,  neither. 

Meantime  their  opponents,  although  they  were 
a  majority,  sat  down  quietly  to  wait  until  Fate 
and  a  general  election  should  bring  in  their  re- 
venge. And  while  they  waited,  Petrograd,  in 
spite  of  what  you  may  have  heard,  re- 
mained for  the  most  part  orderly,  for  that  would 
be  the  Russian  of  it.    The  Government  might  be 

283 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

shifting  from  Menshevic  to  Bolshevic  and  back 
from  Bolshevic  to  Menshevic,  but  through  it  all 
life  and  property  would  be  safer  than  in  almost 
any  other  city  undergoing  the  like  experiences. 

But  of  all  the  incidents  that  pertain  to  the 
Russian  psychology  the  favorite  for  dramatic  in- 
terest and  punch  ought  to  be  the  story  of  the 
Nicholas  Potemkin. 

This  was  a  powerful  armored  cruiser  of  th? 
Black  Sea  fleet.  Her  sailors  had  been  treated  for 
some  years  to  the  peculiar  and  savage  cruelty  that 
prevailed  in  the  Russian  naval  service  of  that 
time  and  had  borne  it  all  with  the  national  forti- 
tude and  stoicism.  Not  a  Russian  officer  seemed 
ever  to  have  suspected  that  men  might  resent 
such  treatment.  The  universal  belief  among  the 
officers  was  that  to  beat  and  kick  the  foremast 
men  was  a  salutary  and  useful  exercise  and  to  be 
enjoyed  to  the  limit,  and  the  men  themselves, 
since  they  said  nothing  about  it,  must  admit  that 
it  was  good  for  them  to  be  kicked  and  beaten. 

Of  a  sudden,  on  June  23,  1905,  the  world  was 
electrified  with  the  news  that  the  crew  of  the 
Potemkin  had  mutinied,  seized  the  vessel,  killed 
most  of  her  officers,  locked  up  the  rest,  and  was 
then  cruising  around  the  Black  Sea  under  com- 

284 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

manders  elected  by  the  forecastle.  For  the  next 
four  days  all  reading  mankind  followed  with 
breathless  interest  the  career  of  the  mutineers. 
They  appeared  at  night  off  Odessa  and  bom- 
barded it,  apparently  for  luck.  They  encountered 
several  vessels  of  the  imperial  navy  and  fought 
so  fiercely  that  the  Czar's  ships  were  sunk  or 
driven  into  flight.  They  went  up  and  down  the 
coast,  spreading  terror  but  doing  no  great  harm. 
They  sent  ashore  to  the  municipality  of  Odessa 
and  to  other  places  messages  of  contempt  mixed 
with  a  grim  kind  of  humor.  Under  the  direction 
of  a  bright  young  officer  whose  life  they  had 
spared  they  maneuvered  their  ship  with  exceed- 
ing skill.  He  subsequently  wrote  an  account  of 
the  voyage  that  for  vivid  interest  and  incredible 
adventures  came  near  to  beating  anything  extant. 
The  men  did  not  get  drunk  and  did  not  commit 
excesses ;  they  merely  sailed  to  and  fro,  took  pot- 
shots at  the  Czar's  ships  and  had  a  right  good 
time  playing  at  freedom. 

Of  course  it  could  not  last,  for  the  Czar's  Gov- 
ernment was  gathering  in  hot  haste  an  over- 
whelming naval  force  to  master  the  rebels.  The 
obvious  thing  to  do  was  to  put  into  a  foreign  port, 
get  ashore  and  make  on  foot  for  a  place  of  safety. 

285 


UNCHAINED  BUSSIA 

Having  rebelled  against  the  authority  of  their 
country  they  would  have  been  entitled  to  the  posi- 
tion of  political  refugees.  The  young  officer  saw 
what  was  coming  and  urged  the  mutineers  to  look 
out  for  themselves,  run  into  a  foreign  port  (there 
were  several  handy)  and  miss  the  gallows  while 
there  was  a  chance.  They  refused  absolutely  to 
listen  to  him,  not  because  they  were  drunk  but 
because  they  wanted  to  have  more  fun  with  the 
Czar's  ships  before  they  quit. 

Then  the  officer,  having  uncomfortable  visions 
of  himself  swinging  at  the  end  of  a  rope,  dropped 
overboard  into  a  boat  and  made  his  escape.  If 
the  rest  had  been  equally  wise  many  of  them 
might  be  living  today.  They  stuck  to  the  ship 
and  continued  the  cruise,  breathing  defiance  and 
looking  for  imperial  vessels  to  sink.  Finally  they 
saw  themselves  surrounded  by  irresistible  forces. 
Fate  had  called  for  them.  They  ran  the  Potemkin 
straight  into  a  Eussian  port,  walked  ashore,  put 
their  heads  into  the  waiting  nooses  and  were 
hanged. 

Climate  has  much  to  do  with  the  Russian's  pe- 
culiarities; "we  are  what  suns  and  winds  and 
waters  make  us."  In  a  country  of  long,  gray, 
gloomy    winters    what    should    we    expect    but 

286 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

melancholy?  And  in  a  country  of  extreme  cold 
alternating  with  almost  tropical  heat  we  should 
naturally  expect  some  reflection  in  the  tempera- 
ment and  sensibilities  of  the  people.  Incessant 
battling  against  bitter  winter  weather  must  be 
responsible  for  both  the  tenacity  and  endurance 
of  these  people,  and  may  equally  be  the  origin  of 
their  fatalism.  But  as  even  the  cold  of  Irkutsk 
chills  no  whit  the  hospitality  of  the  native  there, 
neither  will  any  of  the  Eussian's  little  ways  that 
are  all  his  own  lessen  the  liking  that  all  men  have 
for  him  that  know  him  well,  nor  interfere  with 
the  work  in  the  world  he  seems  destined  to  do. 

He  has  an  extraordinary  musical  sense  and  a 
delicate  ear  for  harmony.  Long  ago  he  discov- 
ered, I  know  not  how,  a  fact  hardly  yet  recog- 
nized in  the  Western  world,  that  every  building 
has  its  own  musical  pitch,  and  the  discovery  is 
one  of  the  secrets  of  his  marvelous  church  music 
that  has  been  praised  so  oft  and  oft  and  still,  to 
my  thinking,  not  enough.  For  instance,  part  of 
the  church  service  consists  of  alternating  recita- 
tive and  chant.  In  such  a  building  as  the  great 
Kasan  Cathedral,  where  on  July  1,  1917,  was  cele- 
brated a  special  service  in  honor  of  the  American 
Commission,  there  is  a  very  long,  reverberating 

287 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

echo  that  adjusts  itself  to  the  building's  pitch, 
and  finishes  upon  it.  When  it  dies  out  the  recita- 
tive starts  upon  exactly  that  note,  so  that  it  seems 
to  be  a  revival  of  the  echo  still  lingering  in  the 
listener's  mind. 

Yet  while  he  is  susceptible  to  sweet  music  and 
especially  to  sad,  and  often  is  visibly  moved  at  it 
in  his  church,  I  found  him  not  often  an  extreme 
religionist  and  seldom  anything  of  a  bigot.  He 
seems  to  find  no  great  fault  with  another  man's 
style  of  faith.  There  are  in  Petrograd  churches 
of  about  all  the  leading  kinds  in  the  world,  in- 
cluding a  large  and  handsome  Mohammedan 
mosque.  Since,  in  the  way  before  described,  the 
Revolution  has  so  marvelously  remade  and  democ- 
ratized the  Russian's  own  church,  it  no  longer  in- 
terferes in  government  and  politics.  This  is  a 
change  very  wonderful,  because  in  the  old  days 
it  was  the  strong  bulwark  of  the  existing  system. 
For  the  time  being,  anyway,  revolutionary  Gov- 
ernment and  the  Church  agreed  to  let  each  other 
alone.  It  seems  strange,  but  by  at  least  a  great 
part  of  the  hierarchy  the  new  order  was  viewed 
with  satisfaction,  which  merely  presents  an- 
other Russian  contradiction.  In  the  old  regime 
the  Church  was  a  mighty  power.    After  the  Revo- 

288 


THE  BOLSHEVIC 

lution  it  was  not  a  civil  power  at  all,  and  every- 
body was  content  to  have  it  so. 

Exceptions  can  be  found  to  nearly  anything  in 
Russia.  I  have  been  speaking  here  of  types. 
While  Russians  of  different  types  and  orders  of 
mind  differed  about  thousands  of  things,  Bol- 
shevics,  Menshevics,  Trudevics,  the  land  question, 
syndicalism,  ownership  in  common,  and  so  to  the 
end  of  a  long  catalogue,  I  found  three  things  that 
practically  all  of  them  (aside  from  the  old  privi- 
leged classes)  had  in  common  and  in  about  equal 
degrees.  These  were  essential  kindness  of  heart, 
a  fund  of  common-sense  and  a  fervent  profes- 
sion of  democracy. 

Russians  are  among  the  most  likable  people  on 
earth.  Putting  aside  some  peculiarities,  such  as 
their  fatalism  and  some  of  their  stoicism,  there 
is  another  race  that  they  strongly  resemble.  That 
stout  old  warrior  General  Clay  was  right;  it  is 
the  American. 

Probably  we  can  understand  the  Russian  better 
than  anybody  else  can  understand  him  and  we 
ought  to  do  it. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  INFLUENCE   OF  MANNERS   AND  MORALS 

If  the  shade  of  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay  was 
haunting  these  confines  in  the  summer  of  1906, 
it  must  have  returned  hence  to  cause  in  spirit- 
land  the  echoes  of  an  inextinguishable  laughter. 

While  still  he  wore  these  fleshly  cerements  it 
was  the  opinion  of  this  eminent  authority  that  the 
most  comical  thing  on  earth  was  the  spectacle  of 
the  British  public  in  one  of  its  periodical  spasms 
of  aggressive  virtue.  In  the  summer  of  1906  he 
could  have  seen  in  the  United  States  a  specimen 
of  aggressive  virtue  that  would  have  made  any 
exhibition  he  ever  witnessed  from  the  British 
branch  of  the  Grundy  Family  look  like  a  shame- 
ful surrender  to  vice. 

Also  he  could  have  seen  the  American  public 
playing  into  the  hands  of  an  arch-enemy  of  this 
nation,  and  while  that  particular  part  of  the  show 
might  have  been  funny  to  him,  there  subsequently 
seemed  to  be  very  little  fun  in  it  for  the  thought- 
ful American. 

It  was  the  occasion  of  the  far-famed  and  his- 
290 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

toric  visit  of  Maxim  Gorky  to  these  United  States. 
Mr.  Gorky  had  many  friends  and  ardent  admirers 
here  and  seems  to  have  come  over  in  a  spirit  of 
innocent  eagerness,  expecting  a  cordial  welcome 
in  the  land  of  the  free.  These  happy  expecta- 
tions were  dashed  to  earth,  and  long  after  they 
had  passed  and  been  forgotten  one  of  the  Czar's 
army  of  spies  and  secret  agents  that  then  covered 
the  earth  with  a  network  of  villainy  told  the  in- 
structive story  of  exactly  how  Mr.  Gorky's  dis- 
appointment was  achieved. 

The  Czar's  government  hated  Gorky  and  had 
long  yearned  to  destroy  him,  but  never  quite 
dared.  He  was  one  of  the  bold  and  relentless 
revolutionary  leaders  of  Russia,  heroic  figures  too 
audacious  and  too  conspicuous  to  be  made  before 
the  world's  gaze  victims  of  the  blood-soaked  ma- 
chine by  which  autocracy  retained  its  power  in  a 
country  that  loathed  it.  Once  it  had  attempted 
to  wreak  its  vengeance  on  him,  arresting  him  on 
a  trumped-up  charge,  but  the  outside  world  made 
such  a  protest  that  even  Czarism  was  affrighted 
and  the  novelist  was  released.  Thereafter  he 
took  no  chances  on  the  autocratic  conception  of 
justice  and  lived  in  Italy.  By  common  report  he 
had  been  separated  but  not  divorced  from  his 

291 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

legal  wife ;  he  brought  to  this  country  a  lady  with 
whom  he  was  alleged  or  supposed  to  associate 
informally  and  minus  the  sanction  of  the  mar- 
riage tie ;  and  the  spy  thought  he  knew  the  Ameri- 
can psychology  well  enough  to  be  able  to  use  this 
fact  to  the  novelist's  undoing. 

In  the  disguise  of  a  simple  American  of  stern 
moral  principles,  he  protested  to  a  New  York 
newspaper  against  allowing  this  person,  that  thus 
openly  flaunted  his  shame  in  our  faces,  to  land 
upon  our  unpolluted  shores,  and  in  twenty-four 
hours  the  hunt  was  up  and  away.  Bravely  it 
coursed  up  and  down  in  pursuit  of  the  lonely  and 
unfortunate  Eussian,  who  found  every  hotel  door 
shut  in  his  face  and  was  literally  reduced  to 
tramping  the  streets  until  private  persons  that 
were  willing  to  dare  the  storm  of  criticism  opened 
their  houses  to  shelter  him.  Never,  I  suppose, 
has  Virtue  been  so  triumphantly  vindicated  in 
this  our  broad  land.  One  can  almost  imagine  her 
majestic  figure  returning  victorious  from  the  con- 
flict, her  lofty  glance  still  threatening  all  evil- 
doers as  she  waved  her  mighty  and  irresistible 
sword  in  air. 

But  much  more  was  involved  in  this  in- 
cident   than    the    triumph     of     statutory    and 

292 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

traditional  morality.  I  do  not  know  that  the  spy 
ever  sensed  the  fact,  but  he  could  never  have 
achieved  such  a  feat  in  America  on  purely  moral 
grounds,  moral  as  we  believe  ourselves  never- 
theless. The  truth  is,  Mr.  Gorky  was  well  known 
in  certain  circles  of  this  country  to  be  a  social 
reformer  of  advanced  ideas  concerning  economics. 
It  was  then  the  fashion  to  try  to  discredit  all 
such  reformers.  One  method  was  to  make  it  ap- 
pear that  they  were  all  believers  in  the  pernicious 
doctrine  of  free  love,  and  if  the  story  of  Maxim 
Gorky's  private  life  had  been  manufactured  to 
order  it  could  not  have  better  pleased  men  and 
journals  of  this  disposition.  So  they  accepted 
with  joy  this  apparent  gift  of  the  gods,  and  did  a 
complete  and  satisfactory  job,  and  discredited 
Gorky,  and  made  his  stay  in  this  country  per- 
fectly hellish,  and  sent  him  home  sourly  resentful, 
and  were  contented  and  happy  ever  after. 

But  in  a  way  they  never  suspected  they  had  hit 
the  interests  and  perhaps  the  welfare  of  their 
own  country  a  heavy  blow.  Mr.  Gorky  went  home 
with  a  heart  full  of  bitterness;  also  of  contempt 
and  what  he  deemed  to  be  disillusion  about  Amer- 
ica. From  one  point  of  view  he  had  some  reason 
for  his  contempt.    If  he  ever  cared  to  read  the 

293 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

records  of  the  divorce  courts  in  the  city  that 
spurned  him  as  unfit  for  human  society,  or  if  he 
listened  to  the  comments  of  the  sophisticated,  he 
could  not  have  failed  to  see  that  the  pretense 
of  morality  in  the  persecution  he  had  suffered 
was  exceedingly  shallow.  Anyway,  he  went  back, 
the  determined  enemy  of  the  United  States.  He 
wielded  one  of  the  most  powerful  pens  in  the 
world.  He  had  also  great  and  commanding  in- 
fluence in  his  native  country.  His  story  of  the 
treatment  he  had  received  and  his  account  of  con- 
ditions in  America  made  a  profound  impression 
upon  the  Russian  mind.  It  was  not  changed  by 
after  events  and  by  the  close  of  1917  Americans 
were  in  a  good  position  to  judge  of  its  results. 

True,  the  social  reformer  had  been  well  dis- 
credited, but  there  seemed  fair  reasons  to  wish 
that  his  private  affairs  had  been  let  alone. 

From  his  account  of  his  experiences  all  think- 
ing Russia  went  to  two  conclusions.  First,  that 
America  was  a  country  of  " bourgeois  morals"; 
and  second,  that  its  press  and  its  governing  ma- 
chinery were  absolutely  controlled  by  the  capital- 
ists. 

If  it  was  a  country  of  bourgeois  morals,  then 
it  was  hopelessly  unenlightened;  and  if  it  was 

294 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

controlled  by  the  capitalists,  then  it  was  hope- 
lessly backward. 

When  the  Revolution  broke,  Mr.  Gorky  was 
chief  owner  of  a  newspaper  in  Petrograd,  the 
Novaia  Zhizn.  It  speedily  attained  a  great 
circulation  and  great  influence.  In  it  he  expressed 
for  the  United  States  the  bitter  dislike  and  scorn- 
ful contempt  he  not  unnaturally  felt  for  it,  and 
his  journal  helped  greatly  to  bring  about  that 
condition  of  misunderstanding  between  the  two 
countries  that  produced  such  lamentable  results. 
Without  ever  intending  it  or  knowing  it,  he  was 
a  powerful  assistant  to  the  propaganda  and 
cohorts  from  the  East  Side  of  New  York  that  in 
the  German  interest  went  to  Russia  to  make 
trouble. 

I  am  not  to  be  understood  as  championing  Mr. 
Gorky *s  supposed  convictions  as  to  the  necessity 
for  the  marriage  ceremony,  or  as  making  any 
judgment  upon  them.  His  views  on  that  subject 
are  his  own  private  affair  and  none  of  my  busi- 
ness. I  try  here  only  to  make  Americans  under- 
stand Russia,  and  it  is  impossible  to  do  that  with- 
out touching  on  the  topic  thus  suggested,  uncon- 
ventional as  it  is  for  ordinary  and  frank  discus- 
sion before  a  mixed  audience. 

295 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

Any  man  that  has  traveled  open-eyed  about  this 
world  knows  well  enough  that  what  we  call  moral- 
ity is  largely  geographical.  Civilization  as  we 
have  thus  far  known  it  has  certain  fixed  bases  of 
faith  between  nation  and  nation  and  man  and 
man,  such  as  those  that  Germany  in  1914  and 
thereafter  sought  to  overturn  and  trample  upon 
in  war;  but  when  it  comes  to  the  morality  of  the 
relations  between  the  sexes,  that  is  a  different 
matter.  What  is  perfectly  moral  at  one  degree 
of  longitude  becomes  grossly  and  intolerably  im- 
moral at  another.  "What  one  nation  regards  with 
indifference  another  looks  upon  with  shudders, 
and  I  do  not  believe  we  shall  ever  get  far  in  inter- 
national accord  until  we  come  to  some  recogni- 
tion of  this  fact.  We  are  not  obliged  to  adopt  or 
admire  the  ideas  of  another  country  but  we  may 
as  well  admit  that,  like  our  own,  they  are  the 
product  of  environment  and  training  and  cannot 
be  eradicated  to  order. 

That  being  the  case,  there  is  no  occasion  for  the 
petrified  horror  with  which  some  American  and 
most  British  visitors  view  what  they  call  the 
moral  condition  of  a  city  like  Petrograd.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Russian  standards  it  is  not  the 
"most  immoral  city  in  the  world."    It  is  not  im- 

296 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

moral  at  all.  With  a  perfectly  naive  sincerity  the 
Russians  look  upon  these  things  in  a  way  differ- 
ent from  our  way.  They  see  nothing  wrong  in 
certain  things  that  seem  very  wrong  to  us,  and 
as  their  standards  will  have  to  continue  to  be 
their  own  and  not  ours  we  gain  nothing  by  be- 
rating them. 

Yet  the  Nevsky  Prospekt  after  sundown  is  not 
a  place  where  men  that  understand  the  terrible 
significance  of  prostitution  will  be  really  glad  to 
be.  Neither  is  Piccadilly,  for  that  matter,  nor  a 
hundred  other  streets  in  the  heart  of  London. 
But  here  it  is  with  a  difference;  a  meretricious 
commerce  is  carried  on  with  complete  frankness 
and  to  the  utter  unconcern  of  those  not  directly 
engaged  in  it.  The  sale  of  popcorn  or  peanuts 
might  attract  more  attention. 

It  is  a  point  of  view  of  which  the  morals  of 
the  Nevsky  Prospekt  are  only  one  reflection. 
Taking  Russia  by  and  large,  one  may  say  that  as 
a  rule,  where  there  is  no  implication  of  force  or 
fraud  and  no  interference  with  social  rank,  what 
we  call  illicit  relations  between  the  sexes  are  re- 
garded as  not  morally  objectionable.  That  is  the 
fact,  baldly  stated.  But  if  you  ask  me  for  an 
opinion  as  to  the  practical  results  of  such  a  view 

297 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

of  a  very  tangled  and  difficult  problem  I  shall 
have  to  say  frankly  that  I  do  not  think  it  works 
well.  Every  country  has  its  own  customs,  says 
the  wise  French  proverb.  I  have  no  idea  of  set- 
ting an  example  in  the  criticism  about  which  I 
have  just  been  finding  fault.  The  Russians  are 
entitled  to  their  own  view  of  the  matter  and  to 
be  happy  in  it  if  they  can.  But  without  going  into 
needless  details  there  are  certain  facts  about  the 
way  this  laxity  works  out  well  known  to  every- 
body that  knows  Russia  and  not  exhilarating  to 
those  that  wish  the  country  well.  A  man  need 
not  be  squeamish  or  unduly  sensitive  about  such 
things  to  wish  much  success  to  White  Cross  and 
other  movements  for  sexual  restraint  after  con- 
templating some  of  these  conditions.  Laying 
aside  any  question  of  morals,  in  any  state  of  so- 
ciety that  is  designed  to  be  stable  and  wholesome, 
it  would  seem,  for  instance,  well  to  discourage  a 
habit  among  young  girls  of  visiting  the  rooms  of 
male  guests  at  hotels,  and  also  to  check,  so  far  as 
possible,  the  spread  of  social  diseases.  I  suggest 
but  two  aspects  of  the  matter.  There  are  others. 
One  great  difficulty  about  mentioning  this  phase 
of  Russian  life  is  that  immediately  the  reaction- 
ary will  parrot  his  favorite  remarks  that  the  Rus- 

298 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

sian's  idea  of  liberty  is  license,  and  that  the 
Russian  people,  being  entirely  unfitted  for  free- 
dom, cut  loose  in  a  libidinous  carnival  as  soon  as 
the  restraining  hand  of  the  imperial  government 
was  removed.  These  assertions,  although  con- 
tinually made  in  this  country,  were  baseless. 
There  was  no  "license"  and  no  carnival  of  libidi- 
nous extravagance.  Every  condition  that  seems 
shocking  now  to  the  delicate  soul  of  a  prunes-and- 
prisms  Anglo-Saxon  existed  no  less  under  the  em- 
pire. The  Revolution  brought  no  enlarged  free- 
dom in  these  respects  and  had  no  effect  upon 
what  we  should  call  the  morals  of  the  country 
except  what  might  result  from  an  increased 
seriousness  of  mental  habit.  Instead  of  license 
being  any  result  of  the  Revolution,  the  most  amaz- 
ing thing  was  the  evidence  among  the  people 
everywhere  of  an  unequaled  capacity  for  restraint 
and  self-control.  But  probably  nothing  will  ever 
remove  the  other  idea  from  the  average  American 
mind.  It  is  fixed  there  with  the  belief  in  universal 
Russian  "illiteracy"  and  ignorance  of  and  un- 
fitness for  democracy  and  the  rest  of  the  mis- 
conceptions that  have  wrought  so  much  trouble 
between  the  two  countries.  It  gratifies  our  preju- 
dices and  preconceived  ideas  to  believe  these  fan- 

299 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

tasies;  what  then  shall  hinder  us  from  believing 
them? 

The  Russian  is  an  Oriental;  that  may  help 
those  of  us  that  wish  to  solve  his  riddle.  No 
doubt  he  has  an  Oriental  idea  of  what  we  call 
sexual  morality.  But  at  the  very  next  turn  we 
are  laid  all  aback  with  the  fact  that  he  is  not  the 
least  Oriental  in  his  attitude  toward  the  place  of 
women  in  society;  new  Russia  was  one  of  the  first 
nations  to  adopt  woman  suffrage,  an  inconsist- 
ency that  ought  to,  but  will  not,  give  pause  to  the 
confident  souls  that  so  easily  draw  generalities 
about  him.  What!  Shall  we  give  up  choice  in- 
door sport  merely  because  the  Russian  is  a  sphinx 
and  fails  to  make  good  our  excellent  prognoses? 

But  as  to  what  we  call  morals;  of  course  the 
standards  of  the  Nevsky  Prospekt  after  sundown 
are  reflected  in  the  powerful  Russian  literature 
and  the  extraordinary  Russian  drama.  There 
are  those  among  us  that  are  willing  to  take  the 
Russian  novel  as  it  is  and  slip  off  our  Puritan 
scruples  for  the  sake  of  the  Russian  novelist's 
unequaled  grasp  upon  the  vital  and  the  moving; 
for  when  you  read  him  it  is  as  if  one  of  Bret 
Harte's  "jinnies  fierce  and  wild"  had  reached 
out  of  space  and  caught  you  irrevocably  by  the 

300 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

heart.  And  as  to  the  drama,  if  I  may  make  any 
fair  guess,  that  is  no  more  than  beginning,  and 
another  generation  is  likely  to  see  Russian  plays 
that  will  set  the  world  agape,  morals  or  no  morals. 
But  I  speak  of  the  people  as  they  are  today,  and 
according  to  all  tradition  and  theory  one  of  the 
best  reflexes  of  their  mental  state  should  be  found 
in  a  typical  audience  at  a  theater  or  a  typical 
group  of  spectators  at  a  film  show. 

But  I  solemnly  swear  to  you  I  went  out  upon 
such  a  hunt  and  returned  but  little  wiser.  There 
was  at  one  of  the  larger  film  theaters  of  Petro- 
grad  when  I  was  there  a  moving-picture  show  that 
certainly  should  bring  out  a  people's  mental  proc- 
esses, if  anything  of  that  kind  could.  It  was  a 
version  of  the  Russian  Revolution  and  the  story 
of  Rasputin.  Morals  aside,  once  more,  the  thing 
was  exceedingly  well  done;  there  is  no  question 
about  that.  The  acting  seemed  to  be  superbly 
spirited;  the  stirring  scenes  of  the  Revolution 
were  put  on  with  endless  accessories,  great  crowds 
and  potent  realism.  Night  after  night  the  theater 
was  packed  with  people.  They  sat  there  and 
gazed  upon  vivid  picturings  of  the  most  colossal 
drama  in  modern  history  and  of  the  strangest  and 

301 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

weirdest  tale  ever  told,  and  for  emotion  might  as 
well  have  been  graven  of  stone. 

I  could  not  then  explain  this  fact  and  do  not 
pretend  to  explain  it  now.  I  went  back  to  the 
place  more  than  once  to  make  sure,  and  I  talked 
with  others  that  went,  some  of  them  as  much 
puzzled  as  I,  and  it  was  always  the  same  story. 
The  people  sat  absolutely  unmoved  before  scenes 
that  one  would  think  would  stir  them  to  their 
depths.  There  was  every  kind  of  strong,  if  primi- 
tive, emotion  in  that  play;  also  everything  cal- 
culated to  appeal  to  the  revolutionary  spirit  of 
revolutionists  and  the  reactionary  spirit  of  reac- 
tionaries, and  nobody  seemed  to  be  either  glad  or 
mad. 

They  saw  the  alleged  relations  between  Ras- 
putin and  the  late  Czarina  indicated  with  a  frank- 
ness and  lack  of  reserve  that  might  have  appalled 
a  crowd  of  Westerners,  but  these  apparently  were 
neither  shocked  nor  pleased.  They  saw  the  late 
Czar  depicted  as  dull,  sensual,  cruel  and  as  his 
wife's  degraded  dupe,  and  if  there  were  mon- 
archists in  the  company  they  did  not  care,  and  if 
there  were  republicans  they  suppressed  their  ela- 
tion. They  saw  the  Czar  signing  his  abdication 
and  surrendering  the  throne  of  his  ancestors  and 

302 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

were  unconcerned.  They  saw  the  uprising  of  the 
people,  the  dawn  of  liberty,  the  fighting  in  the 
streets,  the  triumph  of  democracy,  the  long- 
looked-for  day  come  at  last,  the  long  processions 
of  cheering  multitudes,  and  gave  never  a  hand- 
clap. 

I  could  never  well  understand  that  play.  The 
author  might  with  equal  reason  be  believed  to 
have  planned  it  to  awaken  enthusiasm  for  the 
Revolution  or  sympathy  for  the  deposed  and 
worthless  tribe  of  Romanoffs — I  never  could  tell 
which.  The  Czar  in  the  earlier  scenes  was  repre- 
sented as  unattractive,  but  the  last  scenes  seemed 
intended  to  make  him  a  martyr  and  a  figure 
of  cheap  pathos,  if  anybody  cares  for  that.  He 
is  a  prisoner  in  his  palace ;  he  paces  up  and  down 
with  bent  head,  and  then  tries  to  pass  out  of  a 
doorway.  Two  soldiers,  with  bayonets  advanced, 
halt  him.  He  nods  his  head  and  sighs,  and  then 
paces  around  to  another  door  and  two  other  sol- 
diers halt  him  there.  Then  he  draws  apart  the 
window  curtains  and  looks  sadly  into  the  street 
where  the  people  are  celebrating  the  Revolution, 
and  the  end  of  it  is  a  "close  up"  of  him  in  that 
position. 

One  night  a  young  officer,  pointed  out  to  me  as 
303 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

the  son  of  a  noble,  shed  tears  at  this  rather 
mawkish  scene,  bnt  the  rest  of  the  people  did  not 
cry  nor  seem  to  care.  It  was  plain  that  they  were 
interested,  but  whatever  emotions  they  felt  they 
successfully  concealed. 

On  another  occasion  I  saw  a  film  of  a  celebrated 
American  comic  hero  of  the  movies  whose  impos- 
sible and  galumphing  antics  have  made  millions 
roar  in  this  country,  and  he  did  not  seem  funny 
to  the  Eussians.  They  observed  him  chasing 
cannon-balls  and  dancing  on  his  head  and  did 
not  even  smile.  This  time  it  was  plain  they  were 
bored  by  the  show.  They  talked  and  moved  rest- 
lessly about  and  cracked  sunflower  seeds,  and 
some  went  out,  a  signal  proof  of  disapprobation, 
for  the  Eussian  is  thrifty;  he  will  not  easily  spend 
money  for  a  show  and  then  leave  it. 

Yet  a  few  nights  later  I  saw  an  audience  com- 
posed of  about  the  same  class  of  people  made 
ecstatic  by  a  vocalist.  He  sang  very  effectively 
some  Eussian  folksongs  and  the  people  cheered 
him  with  a  sincerity  of  feeling  that  any  performer 
might  be  proud  to  evoke.  They  were  discrim- 
inating, also;  they  knew  good  singing  from  a 
poorer  offering;  they  were  not  carried  away  by 
any  bare  appeal  of  the  song  itself.    Being  singers 

304 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

themselves  they  had  reason  to  know  the  real  from 
the  counterfeit.  A  little  later  they  would  hardly 
give  a  hand  to  a  performer  that  they  thought  fell 
short  of  a  laudable  standard. 

It  was  a  very  large  audience  and  a  program 
that  began  at  8:30  P.  M.  lasted  until  1  A.  M., 
which  in  summer  is  no  unusual  time  for  these 
entertainments  to  close.  A  man  made  the  audi- 
ence cry  with  the  way  he  read  a  simple  little  poem. 
I  doubt  if  anybody  could  make  an  American  audi- 
ence cry  with  the  same  thing.  Another  man  made 
them  laugh  with  a  comic  sketch  of  his  own  com- 
posing. I  think  this  was  the  most  interesting 
part  of  the  performance.  The  sketch  being  new 
there  was  an  unusual  chance  to  see  how  the  minds 
of  the  people  worked  upon  a  humorous  sugges- 
tion and  they  seemed  to  work  like  a  steel  trap. 
They  seized  the  idea  the  instant  it  left  the  speak- 
er's lips. 

They  laughed  at  funny  lines,  wept  at  a  poem 
about  a  little  girl  in  the  snow,  and  looked  with 
considerable  indifference  on  film-show  antics  of 
a  high-priced  and  favorite  entertainer. 

Before  the  Revolution  the  censorship  of  plays 
was  very  strict,  but  only  in  relation  to  their  politi- 
cal significance.    Cut  out  any  suggestion  of  revo- 

305 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

lution  or  disloyalty  or  lack  of  perfect  servility 
toward  the  divinely  chosen  tribe  of  parasites,  and 
one  could  go  as  far  as  one  pleased.  In  many 
cases  this  was  pretty  far.  George  Bernard 
Shaw's  "Mrs.  Warren's  Profession,"  that  play 
at  which  the  foundations  of  English  morality 
were  supposed  to  rock,  was  given  in  Russia  with- 
out the  least  difficulty.  Only — people  did  not  like 
it  and  its  run  was  short.  I  was  at  pains  to  ask 
what  was  thought  to  be  the  matter  with  it  and 
was  told  that  the  Russians  could  not  see  anything 
in  it.  It  seemed  to  them  but  a  flat,  colorless  and 
dreary  thing,  without  adequate  reason.  They 
could  think  of  no  basis  upon  which  anyone  should 
find  entertainment  in  such  a  play.  I  suppose 
what  they  were  trying  to  say  was  that  it  lacked 
punch,  and  indeed,  compared  with  some  of  the 
admired  Russian  dramas,  it  does  look  somewhat 
pale  and  without  a  clutch.  Some  of  my  Russian 
friends  thought  I  must  be  in  error  when  I  said 
that  "Mrs.  Warren's  Profession"  had  been  sup- 
pressed by  the  British  authorities.  The  task  of 
making  them  understand  why  was  beyond  my 
powers  and  patience.  I  could  not  induce  them  to 
believe  that  anybody  thought  that  play  immoral. 
It  is  not  that  they  have  a  lower  sense  of  moral- 
306 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

ity  but  that  theirs  is  different.  The  great 
thing  in  Russian  art  of  any  kind  is  Power ;  noth- 
ing else  counts  much.  Let  an  artist  deal  with  the 
relations  of  the  sexes  or  deal  with  a  birch  forest 
in  dead  winter,  but  whatever  he  deals  with,  he  is 
to  let  go  with  all  he  has  and  be  not  afraid,  nothing 
will  bite  him.  That  seems  to  be  the  controlling 
idea  and  some  of  the  results  take  the  breath  of 
the  modern  world. 

Painting,  for  instance.  They  opened  especially 
for  us  one  morning  the  Alexander  III  Museum  of 
Modern  Russian  Art,  that  overpowering  place  of 
wonders  into  which  not  even  the  most  careless 
ever  strolled  without  emerging  in  a  swirl  of  new 
emotions  and  strange  visions.  It  was  all  here; 
the  beginning  of  modern  Russian  painting,  timid 
and  imitative;  the  slickery  styles  of  a  century 
ago  conscientiously  transplanted  like  hothouse 
growths  to  an  uncongenial  soil ;  then  the  awaken- 
ing when  the  Russians  found  themselves  and  their 
own  methods,  and  behold  these  miles  of  canvases 
to  make  all  the  world  wonder.  Power— power 
and  subtlety  and  the  most  amazing  perception  of 
the  inside  things  of  life,  life  everywhere  else  as 
much  as  in  Russia,  things  that  you  always  felt 
were  there  but  never  before  saw  put  into  a  pic- 

307 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

ture,  great  scenes  with  the  most  daring  but  most 
successful  color  schemes,  portraits  that  had 
underneath  amazing  sardonic  suggestions  of  the 
vanity  and  sordidness  of  life ;  but  everything  done 
with  power.  No  punch,  no  picture,  is  the  Russian 
rule.  It  is  not  worth  while  merely  to  paint  some- 
thing that  is  pretty  or  nice.  The  nice  little  thing 
is  ill  esteemed  in  Russia.  Come  down  with  a 
smash — but  right  on  the  center  of  the  target. 

And  the  same  people  that  have  such  an  unerr- 
ing intuitive  sense  of  truth  about  art  and  cannot 
be  fooled  out  of  it,  can  be  led  into  economic  and 
political  dreamland  by  persons  that  tell  them  the 
Heavenly  Utopia  is  due  at  noon  tomorrow  and 
with  the  waving  of  a  magic  wand,  behold !  the  gold- 
en streets !  and  hark !  the  symphony  of  harps  1 

Also,  we  descend  with  a  thump  from  the  mag- 
nificent altitudes  of  Russian  art  as  displayed  in 
modern  paintings  to  the  kind  of  Russian  art  that 
is  represented  in  the  comic  illustrated  news- 
papers, some  of  which  navigate  the  streams  of 
the  gutter.  As  soon  as  the  lid  fell  off  the  press 
with  the  collapse  of  the  empire,  out  came  a  swarm 
of  these  publications,  joyously  released  from  the 
least  restraint.  I  made  a  collection  of  them  while 
I  was  in  Russia  and  some  were  of  a  nature  to 

308 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

cause  the  grave  of  Anthony  Comstock  to  break 
into  eruption.  No  doubt  it  is  all  a  matter  of  the 
point  of  view,  as  I  have  said  before,  but  my  argu- 
ment of  the  point  of  view  I  must  stretch  pretty 
far  (I  confess  it)  to  be  able  to  cover  some  of  the 
things  the  comic  artists  draw  weekly  for  their 
inured  constituents.  The  raft  of  it  is  pretty 
coarse  stuff  and  not  discernibly  funny  to  the 
Western  mind,  but  the  Russians  smile  at  it.  Yet 
we  should  go  slow  about  drawing  any  conclusions 
from  that  fact.  I  have  seen  worse  things  in  Ber- 
lin and  in  the  Munich  Salon  of  1913,  and  every 
visitor  that  has  trod  observingly  the  Alte  Wiese 
at  Carlsbad  is  immune  against  shock  from  the 
Russian  comics. 

I  was  rather  astonished  to  see  that  the  Rasputin 
story  still  furnished  these  jesters  with  endless 
material,  of  a  broad,  ancient  and  gargantuan 
style  of  humor.  A  favorite  achievement  was  to 
represent,  with  some  details  that  I  omit,  Rasputin 
carrying  the  Empress  off  in  his  arms  while  the 
Czar  stood  by  and  looked  on,  loutishly  helpless. 
You  may  remember  that  they  laughed  at  similar 
things  on  the  immortal  road  from  Southwark  at 
the  Tabard  to  Canterbury,  about  six  hundred 
years  agone.    It  was  now  become  one  of  the  least 

309 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

goatish  of  the  comic  journal's  themes — from 
which  fact  I  leave  you  to  imagine  the  rest. 

And  yet  even  the  comic  journal  at  its  worst,  or 
the  Nevsky  Prospekt  at  its  worst,  would  seem  to 
the  sincere,  earnest  and  virtuous  Russian  to  rep- 
resent social  sins  of  no  moment  compared  with 
the  transgressions  that  daily  we  commit  and 
never  think  of.  To  the  Russian  conviction  and 
conscientious  practice  a  lack  of  hospitality  is  far 
more  immoral  than  unsanctioned  relations  "be- 
tween the  sexes.  The  guest  has  most  sacred  and 
inalienable  rights;  even  the  stranger  within  the 
gates  cannot  be  viewed  with  indifference.  It  used 
to  be  the  commonest  experience  for  a  traveler,  if 
he  were  above  the  level  of  the  tramp,  to  enter  a 
village  where  he  had  never  been  before,  and  if 
the  inn  were  crowded  find  exuberant  welcome  and 
entertainment  at  the  best  house  in  the  place. 
Even  the  poorest  was  always  sure  of  shelter  and 
food.  There  was  something  like  this  in  our  West- 
ern country  in  the  pioneer  days,  but  in  Russia  it 
was  universal  and  the  spirit  of  it  survives  against 
all  the  hardening  processes  of  civilization. 

An  American  mining  engineer,  making  a  long 
and  lonely  journey  in  a  sledge  across  remote 
Siberia,  came  into  a  considerable  town  one  night 

310 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

and  while  waiting  for  his  packs  to  be  unstrapped 
fell  into  conversation  with  a  resident.  As  soon 
as  the  local  man  discovered  the  nationality  of  the 
visitor  nothing  would  do  but  that  the  Amerikan- 
sky  must  stay  at  the  villager's  house.  With  in- 
finite labor  and  pains  he  cared  for  the  visitor's 
baggage,  led  him  into  a  really  comfortable  and 
clean  abode  and  then  inquired  minutely  concern- 
ing his  taste  in  Russian  delicacies.  Some  of  these 
not  being  in  the  house,  the  host  went  out  and  ran- 
sacked the  village  for  them.  Wherever  he  went 
he  had  only  to  say  that  he  was  entertaining  a 
traveler,  a  man  from  a  far  country,  to  have  the 
best  there  was  placed  at  his  disposal.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  drinks  the  American  was  beguiled  into  an 
admission  that  his  fancy  was  ale,  and  the  host 
managed  to  secure  the  only  bottle  of  this  restora- 
tive in  the  entire  region,  I  suppose.  It  had  been 
brought  up  the  river  to  Krasnyarsk  by  an  Eng- 
lish skipper,  who,  as  an  evidence  of  esteem,  had 
presented  it  to  a  native  by  whom  it  was  held  in 
almost  superstitious  reverence.  Yet  it  had  to 
come  forth  at  the  news  that  a  stranger  from  a 
far  country  was  in  town  and  wanted  that  little 
bottle  to  make  him  quite  happy. 

Meantime  his  hosts  made  preparations  to  feed 
311 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

him,  apparently  under  the  impression,  he  said 
afterward,  that  his  appetite  had  increased  in  pro- 
portion to  his  distance  from  home.  The  feast 
lasted  the  better  part  of  the  night  and  then,  the 
poor  man  said  pathetically,  seemed  to  begin 
again.  For  just  as  he  was  congratulating  him- 
self that  all  was  over,  and,  feeling  stuffed  like  a 
sausage,  was  expecting  a  chance  to  get  to  bed, 
they  brought  out  another  table  with  another  as- 
sortment of  dainties,  like  ham  and  smoked  goose, 
and  commanded  him  to  a  final  repast,  being  con- 
vinced that  as  he  had  eaten  no  more  than  what 
he  deemed  enough  for  six  men  he  would  perish 
before  morning  unless  he  now  took  a  little  some- 
thing to  sustain  him. 

And  in  the  morning  they  all  kissed  him  with 
great  heartiness  and  prayed  for  blessings  on  him 
and  came  out  to  tuck  him  into  his  sledge  like  a 
baby  and  see  that  he  was  all  wrapped  up  in  furs 
and  safe  for  his  journey — and  they  never  even 
mastered  his  name !  They  did  not  care.  He  was 
a  stranger  far  from  home,  traveling  alone,  and 
the  big,  warm  Russian  heart  went  out  to  him. 

To  fail  of  any  possible  kindness  to  him  would 
have  been  their  idea  of  immorality,   and  they 

312 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

would  be  perfectly  honest  and  conscientious  in 
that  idea. 

It  is  their  strength  and  it  is  their  weakness. 
The  impracticable  Bolshevio  philosophy  could 
never  have  gained  foothold  with  them  if  it  had 
not  the  appeal  of  universal  federation,  all  the 
world  to  be  made  happy  and  all  to  be  good  friends 
and  peaceful  neighbors  together.  It  was  per- 
fectly characteristic  that  having  accepted  this 
alluring  dream  of  universal  peace  the  Bolshevics 
should  be  ready  to  go  out  and  fight  their  country- 
men for  it.  They  were  determined  to  have  peace 
and  loving  brotherhood  if  they  had  to  wade 
through  blood  to  get  it. 

As  I  have  before  explained,  the  German  propa- 
ganda understood  this  flawlessly,  as  it  always 
masters  whatever  can  be  turned  to  its  advantage, 
and  when  I  was  in  Russia  all  of  the  German  press- 
agency  and  secret-manipulation  work  was  done 
along  these  lines.  It  was  the  German  play  to 
represent  that  the  masses  of  people  everywhere, 
being  downtrodden  and  oppressed  by  the  capital- 
ist class,  were  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  arise 
and  adopt  the  Bolshevic  plan  for  the  Instantane- 
ous Millennium,  the  only  thing  necessary  being 
that  the  Bolshevics  of  Russia  should  lead  the  way. 

313 


UNCHAINED  KUSSIA 

The  German  agents  even  diligently  encouraged 
the  belief  that  Germany  was  about  to  revolt  and 
proclaim  the  German  Eepublic!  Germany,  where 
there  was  as  much  chance  of  a  revolution  as  there 
was  at  the  North  Pole! 

A  lavish  table,  such  as  I  have  suggested  in  the 
story  of  the  mining  engineer,  was  always  a  feature 
of  the  life  of  the  well-to-do  Russian  household. 
In  plain  terms,  they  were  great  eaters ;  I  used  to 
wonder  at  their  storage  capacity,  which  excelled 
anything  of  the  kind  I  had  ever  observed. 
Yet  a  fat  Russian  is  a  rare  spectacle.  Germans 
eat  a  great  deal  and  get  fatty  degeneration ;  Rus- 
sians eat  a  great  deal  and  keep  within  a  reason- 
able girth.  Not  by  exercise,  God  knows ;  the  well- 
to-do  Russian  abhors  it  with  all  the  vigor  of  a 
soul  gifted  in  expression.  He  would  not  walk 
across  the  street  if  he  could  be  carried,  and  his 
idea  of  rational  existence  is  to  sit  at  ease  in  a 
great  chair  into  which  he  sinks  half  of  his  cor- 
poreal existence,  to  smoke  an  excellent  cigaret  of 
his  nation's  own  devising,  and  to  take  part  in 
voluble  but  often  brilliant  conversation.  Upon 
the  races  that  exult  in  rude  sports,  baseball, 
hockey,  long  hikes  and  the  rest,  he  looks  with 
wonder.    He  has  neither  contempt  for  them  nor 

314 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

the  least  desire  to  imitate.    He  merely  does  not 
understand  why  they  think  they  are  having  fun. 

I  am  talking  now  of  the  ruling  classes  and  their 
satellites  under  the  old  regime.  With  the  peas- 
ants, of  course,  the  case  was  different;  there  was 
small  chance,  as  I  have  before  indicated,  that  they 
would  be  overfed  or  grow  atrophied  for  the  lack 
of  muscular  exertion.  Yet  the  peasants  invaria- 
bly looked  well-nourished.  The  truth  is,  that  Rus- 
sia is  normally  a  land  of  plenty  and  the  climate 
demands  calories  and  hearty  food. 

A  dinner  at  the  house  of  a  Russian  in  easy  cir- 
cumstances is  an  affair  of  some  moment;  eating 
being  in  that  climate  the  most  important  func- 
tion of  life,  there  is  no  disposition  to  take  a  light 
or  frivolous  view  of  a  matter  of  such  solemn 
significance.  I  believe  the  meal  is  never  served 
on  time,  nor  anywhere  near  the  schedule;  a  fact 
so  pleasantly  remindful  of  the  American  railroad 
that  when  you  think  about  it  you  feel  quite  com-1 
fortable  and  at  home.  You  enter  the  house  on 
the  ground  floor  and  find  first  a  large  and  rather 
bare  reception-room  with  a  huge  fireplace  and 
some  comfortable  seats  near  it.  The  purpose  of 
this  seems  to  be  to  give  the  guest  in  winter  time 
a  chance  to  thaw  out  and  recover  the  use  of  his 

315 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

limbs,  and  in  view  of  the  kind  of  winters  oommon 
in  that  part  of  the  world  the  device  is  not  only 
humane  but  necessary. 

Then  you  go  up  an  elaborate  and  wide  stair- 
case to  the  parlor  and  living-rooms,  which  are  all 
above  the  first  floor.  These  rooms  are  always 
fringed  all  the  way  around  with  chairs,  placed 
against  the  wall  and  as  thickly  as  may  be,  a  cus- 
tom said  to  have  been  originated  by  Peter  the 
Great,  who  was  a  chairmaker  himself  and  may 
have  started  the  fashion  for  the  sake  of  the 
trade.  When  at  last,  just  before  hope  has  be- 
come extinct  and  you  inanimate,  dinner  is  an- 
nounced, you  are  led  first  of  all  to  a  small  snow- 
white  table  in  the  corner  of  the  dining-room, 
every  inch  of  it  crowded  with  dishes  of  food  and 
with  bottles.  This  is  the  celebrated  sagusta  or 
zakuska  (like  every  other  Russian  word  you  can 
spell  it  any  old  way)  upon  which,  a  plate  and  a 
fork  having  been  thrust  into  your  hands,  you  are 
expected  to  make  the  attack  while  standing  and 
conversing  with  your  neighbor.  There  are  rad- 
ishes, pickles,  salt  and  smoked  fish,  sliced  ham, 
sliced  eggs,  salads,  sliced  tomatoes  and  onions, 
various  things  you  don't  know  the  name  of,  and, 
im  spite  of  prohibition,  vodka  and  Scotch  whisky. 

316 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

It  takes  about  half  an  hour  to  tack  your  way  over 
this  ceremony,  which  is  merely  the  harbor-bar  to 
the  full  repast,  and  by  that  time  the  Occidental 
visitor  feels  that  he  has  eaten  a  full  meal,  and 
oares  for  no  more.  But  the  Russian — he  has  had 
no  more  than  an  appetizer,  a  bracer,  a  cocktail, 
and  now  feels  in  fettle  for  the  serious  trencher 
work  of  the  evening.  So  you  sit  down  at  the  large 
table  in  the  center  of  the  room  and  there  comes 
on  first  bortch  or  shtchi,  a  wondrous  soup,  un- 
equaled  in  all  the  cooking  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world,  made  either  of  shredded  cabbage  or 
shredded  beets  with  other  ingredients  unknown 
to  me  but  probably  of  celestial  origin.  With  the 
first  spoonful  of  this  amazing  concoction  the  most 
jaded  appetite  in  the  world  will  arise  and  demand 
more.  Also,  there  comes  a  light,  fluffy  roll,  filled 
with  chopped  meat  or  something,  which  you  are 
expected  to  put  into  the  soup  and  eat  with  it. 

Next  there  will  probably  come  sterlet,  a  long, 
slender  fish  that  looks  somewhat  like  a  pickerel 
but  is  much  better,  and  is  served  with  a  mysteri- 
ous brown  sauce.  After  that  will  be  a  roast, 
served  with  a  dressing  of  buckwheat  fixed  up  in 
some  occult  way  to  cause  you  to  overeat  of  it,  and 
potatoes.     Then,  served  as  a  separate  course, 

317 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

round,  fresh  cucumbers,  most  excellent,  and  the 
rest  of  the  dinner,  salad,  dessert  and  coffee,  will  be 
much  of  the  regular  European  style;  except  the 
cheese,  which  is  a  Russian  specialty  and  a  thing 
apart,  and  the  pastry,  which  will  be  unlike  any  of 
your  previous  acquaintance.  Also,  there  will  be 
(spite  of  prohibition  again)  some  excellent  claret 
from  the  Crimea,  and  other  wines  aplenty. 

About  three  hours  will  be  consumed  in  work- 
ing through  this  bill  of  fare.  And  in  about  an 
hour  and  a  half  more  you  will  be  expected  to 
start  on  another. 

The  conversation,  meantime,  will  have  been  of 
an  unusual  order  of  merit.  Except  France,  I  sup- 
pose there  is  no  other  country  where  the  average 
of  table-talk  is  so  high  as  in  Russia  among  the 
educated;  and  it  will  be  carried  on  in  about  all 
the  languages  of  civilization,  for  the  Russian  is 
by  nature  the  world's  first  polyglot;  he  takes 
to  languages  as  a  Norwegian  takes  to  the  sea. 
At  your  table  there  will  probably  be  not  a  Russian 
that  cannot  speak  at  least  five  languages,  and 
speak  them  fluently  and  accurately.  It  is  a  point 
of  politeness  with  the  educated  Russian  to  speak 
the  language  of  his  visitor.  I  have  had  Russians 
address   me  in  purest  American.     One   of  my 

318 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

neighbors  at  a  dinner  table  said  "nothing  doing" 
and  "the  once-over"  and  talked  about  rubber- 
necks, boobs  and  things  that  got  his  goat  like 
a  native  of  our  most  exclusive  strain,  a  delicate 
attention  to  which  I  am  sure  the  heart  of  any 
American  would  have  warmed. 

When,  after  another  repast,  hardly  less  formid- 
able than  the  first,  you  are  allowed  to  go  home, 
not  altogether  free  from  the  fear  of  apoplexy, 
if  the  season  is  midsummer  you  will  go  by 
daylight  even  if  the  hour  be  midnight,  and  it  will 
probably  be  all  of  that.  Automobiles  being  few 
and  hard  to  come  by,  you  will  be  conveyed  in  a 
funny  little  go-cart,  not  much  bigger  than  babies 
have  in  Brooklyn,  with  a  low  seat  behind  and  a 
high  seat  in  front  whereon  is  perched  a  grotesque 
figure  that  looks  as  if  he  were  expressly  made  up 
for  a  good  buffo  part  in  a  comic  opera. 

This  is  the  cabman.  He  has  on  his  head  a  low- 
crowned  stiff  hat  with  a  broad  brim  much  turned 
up  at  the  sides,  and  he  wears  a  vast  blue  overcoat 
that  stretches  from  his  chin  to  his  heels.  No 
matter  how  hot  the  weather  may  be — and  July 
sees  blistering  days  in  Petrograd — he  wears  this 
monstrous  garment  closely  buttoned  to  the  top. 
You     would     as     reasonably     expect     him     to 

319 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

wear  earmuffs  and  have  a  foot-warmer.  But  that 
is  not  all.  The  whole  center  region  of  this  most 
preposterous  garment,  beginning  above  the  waist- 
line, and  extending  all  the  way  around,  is  thickly 
padded  and  quilted,  so  that  he  must  be  wearing 
there  the  equivalent  of  about  six  thicknesses  of 
the  heavy  cloth  of  which  the  coat  is  made.  You 
would  think  the  man  would  perish;  you  would 
think  he  would  dissolve  and  flow  down  the  street, 
a  stream  of  molten  fat.  Yet  on  the  hottest  day 
of  July  when  you  are  panting  along  in  your  Palm 
Beach  suit  and  hunting  the  shade,  he  will  sit  in 
the  sun  in  that  mass  of  quilts  and  things  and 
never  seem  in  the  least  perturbed. 

You  will  probably  notice  that  this  driver  per- 
son knows  comparatively  little  about  the  city  and 
has  difficulty  in  finding  his  way.  That  is  because 
he  is  a  peasant  that  comes  here  to  drive  when 
work  is  slack  on  the  farm.  You  will  also  notice 
that  he  will  pay  no  attention  to  tariffs  but  con- 
duct his  transportation  business  on  the  good  old 
principle  of  what  the  traffic  will  bear  or  what  he 
thinks  he  can  extract  from  you,  which  must  on 
the  average  be  a  pretty  fair  sum,  for  some  of  the 
choicest  stories  current  in  Petrograd  relate  to 
the  wealth  of  the  cabmen. 

320 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

But  all  of  this  evening's  entertainment,  you 
must  remember,  pertains  to  the  world  of  the  for- 
tunate. You  went  out  to  dine  with  a  rich  Rus- 
sian, very  likely  a  large  landowner,  or  a  manu- 
facturer, a  man  with  a  title,  for  the  Russian  nobil- 
ity never  had  the  least  objection  to  going  into 
profitable  trade.  It  is  a  very  different  story  when 
you  drop  below  that  stratum.  There  never  was  a 
country  where  these  strata  distinctions  were  more 
sharply  marked  than  in  Russia  under  the  old  sys- 
tem; there  never  was  one  where  waste  of  life  was 
more  wanton  or  more  profligate — wasted  by  the 
fortunate  in  idling  and  stuffing,  wasted  by  the 
vast  hordes  of  common  population  in  an  exist- 
ence without  hope  or  light.  After  the  counter- 
revolution of  November,  1917,  Americans  became 
so  disgusted  with  the  Bolshevics  they  forgot 
the  conditions  that  produced  Bolshevics  and  made 
a  Bolshevic  day  inevitable.  Yet  it  is  wholesome 
for  us  to  be  reminded  of  the  fact  and  to  dwell 
upon  it,  that  the  Russian  people  were  brought  by 
their  Revolution  out  of  intense  darkness  into  sud- 
den light,  and  that  for  a  time  there  was  neces- 
sarily groping  around  after  the  impossible.  We 
seemed  to  have  acquired  a  knowledge  of  history 
without   its   philosophy.     On   a   calm   review  it 

321 


UNCHAINED  EUSSIA 

will  seem  that  what  happened  was  but  normal. 

As  to  the  intensity  of  the  darkness,  let  me  re- 
call one  or  two  little  records  that  may  serve  to 
make  it  seem  real  to  us. 

In  1910  the  medical  profession  of  Eussia  re- 
vealed the  startling  fact  that  there  was  in  pro- 
portion to  population  far  more  neurasthenia  in 
Eussia  than  in  any  other  country  in  the  world, 
and  it  was  not,  as  is  generally  the  case  elsewhere, 
confined  to  the  more  fortunate  among  the  peo- 
ple ;  in  Eussia  it  prevailed  most  among  the  peas- 
ants and  the  toilers.  Why  among  them?  Be- 
cause, said  the  doctors,  the  weight  of  the  gloom 
and  horrors  in  which  they  lived  lowered  their 
nervous  vitality  and  made  them  prone  to  this 
disease  as  to  many  others. 

Eussia,  in  those  days,  also  led  all  the  world  in 
the  proportion  of  its  suicides.  Most  amazing  and 
impressive  fact  of  all,  among  the  suicides  was  a 
cruel  number  of  the  young.  Eussia  was  the  only 
country  on  earth  where  little  children  killed  them- 
selves. Not  all  the  speech  of  all  the  earth  could 
produce  an  arraignment  of  the  system  more  tre- 
mendous or  more  eloquent  than  that;  the  only 
country  on  earth  where  little  children  deliber- 
ately killed  themselves.    A  few  years  before  the 

322 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

Revolution  came  with  its  blessed  light  the  sui- 
cides among  children  had  become  so  numerous 
and  so  terrifying  that  a  government  commission 
was  appointed  to  investigate  the  causes  and  find 
remedies,  and  this  commission  busied  itself  in 
organizing  among  the  pupils  in  the  public  schools 
anti-suicide  societies  that  it  might  stop  the  growth 
of  an  appalling  evil.  In  two  years  forty-five  chil- 
dren of  less  than  fourteen  years  are  said  to  have 
destroyed  themselves  in  Moscow  alone. 

And  why  did  they  destroy  themselves? 

Because,  according  to  the  commission,  they 
were  overwhelmed  with  the  distress,  the  melan- 
choly and  the  hopelessness  around  them.  They 
arrived  at  years  where  they  could  gain  one  com- 
petent glimpse  of  life  as  it  really  was  in  Russia. 
It  gloomed  before  them,  a  weary  struggle  with- 
out the  joy  of  liberty,  without  a  moment  free  from 
the  black  shadow  of  the  seven-times-accursed  sys- 
tem that  weighed  down  the  hearts  of  all  men  about 
them.  It  was  enough.  They  preferred  death. 
"I  have  nothing  to  live  for,"  wrote  a  girl  ten 
years  old.  Then  she  stabbed  herself.  I  should 
think  the  dagger  she  used  wrote  an  indictment  of 
autocracy  that  will  never  be  returned  as  satisfied 

323 


UNCHAINED  RUSSIA 

so  long  as  there  is  an  autocrat  left  upon  this 
earth. 

And  for  my  part  I  think  I  can  manage  to  be 
fairly  patient  with  whatever  vagaries  or  illusions 
the  new-born  democracy  of  Russia  may  indulge 
in  while  it  is  finding  itself  and  reaching  its  event- 
ual sure  anchorage  of  permanency.  At  least  it 
does  not  blacken  with  despair  the  lives  of  the 
people  it  governs ;  it  does  not  drive  little  children 
to  commit  suicide. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

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LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

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WmmmSliSSS!!!LlS!^l¥»m 


AA    000  735  826 


Unchained    Kuswia.    By  Charles  Edward  Rus- 
sell.   D-  Appletau  &  Co.,  New  York.  $].">o. 
This   book   is   interesting   an<l   valuable 
because  it  ie   written  by  one   who.  is   in 
thorough   sympathy    with    Socialistic    de- 
mocracy.   He  was  the   Socialist  candidate 
for  Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York  in 
1910,  and  again  in  1912.   He  was  one  of  the 
delegation  which  the   President  appointed 
to  visit  Russia  after  the   overthrow  of  the 
Czar,  and  writes  therefore  of  scenes  and 
incidents  which  he  himself  witnessed.    The 
incidents  narrated  are  interesting,  the  style 
is  vivid,  and  the  capital  defect  in  Russian 
democracy  is  brought  out,  to  our  thinking. 
all  the   more  clearly  because  Mr.  Russell 
sympathizes  with  the  democracy  and  does 
not  discern,  while  he  describes,  the  defect. 
Thus  we  are  told  that  the  National  Coun- 
cil, which  supposedly  represented  the  Rus- 
sian people,  "'  might  consistently  have  ad- 
vertised, '  No  lawyers  need  apply.'    Also, 
no  business  men,   employers,  captains    of 
industry,  or  members  of  the  better  classes, 
for  none  of  these  had  great  representation 
in  its  membership."  The  democracy  which 
Mr.  Russell   admires   is  not   democracy  at 
all.    It  is  the  substitution   of  rule   by  oue 
class  for  rule  by  another  class. 


II   II  I 


